>  -        -    ,  'jt^'  f  ^  ^.<>-  ^y  ^'K^  K 


LIBRARY 

OF   TIIK 

Theological    Seminary, 

nRTTvjriRT-mv    i\r  .t 
BL    240    .F3    1860 
Farrar,    Adam   Storey,    1826 
1905. 
'     Science    in   theology 

liOOh.  1      ■ 


^n^ 


s  E  R  m:  o  ^  s, 

PREACHED   BEFORE  THE  UNIVERSITY   OF   OXFORD. 


SCIENCE    IN    THEOLOGY. 


SERMONS 


PREACHED  IN  ST.  MARY'S,  OXFORD, 


BEFOEE  THE   UNIVERSITlf. 


ADAM  S.  FARBAK,  M.A.,  F.G.S.,  F.R.A.S., 

MICHEL  FELLOW  OF  QUEEN'S   COLLEGE,  OXFORD  ;    LATE  ONE  OF   THE   SELECT 

PREACHERS    TO    THE    UNIVERSITY;    AND    PREACHER    AT    THE 

CHAPEL    ROYAL,    WHITEHALL. 


PHILADELPHIA: 

SMITH,    ENGLISH    k    CO., 

No.  23  NORTH  SIXTH  STREET. 

NEW    YORK:    SHELDON    &    CO. 
BOSTON.  GOULD  &  LINCOLN. 

1860. 


C.  SHERMAN  &  SON,  PRINTERS, 
Corner  Seventh  and  Cherry  Streets,  Thiladelphiu. 


PREFACE, 


The  title,  "  Science  in  Theology,"  is  intended  to 
express  the  writer's  purpose  in  the  composition  of 
the  following  Sermons,  viz.,  to  bring  some  of  the 
discoveries  and  methods  of  the  Physical  and  Moral 
Sciences  to  bear  upon  theoretic  questions  of 
Theology. 

The  history  of  the  growth  of  systematic  theology 
on  the  one  hand,  and  of  religious  scepticism  on  the 
other,  exhibits  marked  traces  of  the  constant  pre- 
sence of  an  element  which  may  be  called  Science  in 
Theology.  From  the  time  that  Theology  first  arose 
out  of  Religion,  the  speculative  theory  out  of  the 
practical  art,  it  has  never  failed  to  receive  a  tinge 
from  the  condition  of  general  knowledge  existing, 
and  the  methods  for  the  investigation  of  truth  pre- 
valent, in  each  particular  age.     Itself  a  kind  of 

1* 


VI  PREFACE. 

science, — so  far  as  systematic  arrangement  of  prin- 
ciples can  constitute  science, — it  has  shared  the  fate 
of  the  other  sciences ;  it  has  been  compelled  to  take 
its  place  among  them,  and  has  met  with  opposition, 
or  lias  received  illustration  from  them.  Its  history 
is  marked  by  epochs  of  criticism  or  of  scepticism,  in 
Avliich  it  has  had  to  submit  to  the  investigations  of 
co-ordinate  bodies  of  Physical  or  Mental  Philosophy, 
sometimes  refuting  them,  sometimes  borrowing  from 
them,  at  other  times  surrendering  to  them.  In 
each  of  these  epochs  the  difficulties  presented  have 
been  grounded  in  some  form  of  Science  or  Philo- 
sophy which  has  been  brought  to  bear  upon  Chris- 
tian Theology ;  in  each  of  them  the  restoration  or 
the  perpetuation  of  Christian  belief  has  depended 
ui)on  the  readjustment  of  the  new  form  of  thought 
with  the  claims  of  pre-existent  religious  dogmas. 
The  battle  has  been  metaphysical  or  scientific,  not 
strictly  theological.  It  has  been  fought  in  reference 
to  the  premises  from  which  the  sceptics  or  critics 
liave  started,  not  to  the  conclusions  at  which  they 
have  arrived. 

In  the  early  centuries,  for  example,  Theology 
receiv(^d  a  ting(>  from  contact  with  the  allegorizing 
l)liil()S()phy  of  Alexandria,  which  expressed  itself  in 
the  writings  of  Origcn.     That  learned  man  could 


PREFACE.  Vll 

not  lay  aside  his  favorite  habits  of  thought,  but 
strove  to  adjust  Christian  speculations  to  them. 
During  the  two  centuries  which  followed  his  time, 
Theology  came  into  conflict  with  the  Neo-Platonic 
philosophy,*  and  in  the  conflict  came  forth  victorious 
from  the  first  great  historical  epoch  of  scepticism. 
In  the  middle  ages  it  encountered  a  new  danger,  a 
second  crisis,  from  the  criticism  of  Nominalists  like 
Abelard,  in  the  University  of  Paris  ;t  and  it  re- 
ceived a  new  adjustment  with  the  existing  state  of 
thought  through  means  of  the  logical  arrangements 
of  the  Schoolmen,  such  as  Anselm  and  Aquinas.J 
At  the  era  of  the  Renaissance  it  encountered  new 
difficulties  in  being  brought  into  contact  with  the 
wider  knowledge  which  Providence,  from  time  to 
time,  disclosed  to  mankind — difficulties  which  have 
not,  like  the  more  ancient  ones  previously  noticed, 
quickly  expired,  but  have  left  their  effects  to  the 
present  day.  The  sacred  books  were  then,  for  the 
first  time,  exposed  to  the  criticism  of  great  scholars 
and  editors,  and  alarm  w^as  excited  by  the  discovery 
of  variety  of  readings  in  the  text.     Received  dog- 

*  See  Sermon  V  (pp.  142-146)  of  this  volume. 

t  See  Sir  J.  Stephen's  "  Lectures  on  the  History  of  France"  (vol.  ii, 
first  Lecture  on  the  Power  of  the  Pen). 
X  See  Sermon  VI,  pp.  171,  172. 


Viii  PREFACE. 

mas  also  were  submitted  to  the  acute  controversies 
generated  by  tlic  Reformation,  and  while  under- 
going  revision  from  that  movement  the  terminology 
in  Avhicli  tbey  were  expressed  became  stereotyped 
in  the  mode  that  might  be  expected  from  an  era  of 
religious  stmggle  *  In  the  early  part  of  the  se- 
venteenth century  the  discoveries  in  Physical  Sci- 
ence also  began  to  unveil  new  truths  to  the  minds 
of  the  orthodox.     Metaphysical  Science  likewise, 

*  It  was  an  a^^e  when  theologians  had  not  time  for  careful  thought, 
even  if  the  state  of  scholarship  had  been  sufficiently  advanced  to  sup- 
ply them  with  the  materials  for  it.  This,  however,  was  not  the  case. 
In  the  world  of  scholars  there  were  indeed  giants  in  those  days — Eras- 
mus, Budaius,  the  Stephenses,  the  Scaligers,  &c., — but  their  attention 
was  devoted  mainly  to  icorcls.  The  scholars  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury applied  themselves  rather  to  things.  On  the  foundation  thus  pre- 
pared, the  German  scholars  of  the  last  and  present  century  have  been 
able  to  found  accurate  sciences  of  language  and  of  criticism.  While, 
therefore,  we  justly  render  all  honor  to  the  noble  efforts  of  the  theolo- 
gians of  the  era  of  the  Reformation,  we  ought  not  to  suppose  that  they, 
with  their  imperfect  attainments,  were  infallible  interpreters  of  the 
sacred  Scrijitures,  nor  to  allow  their  views  to  be  an  impediment  to  the 
theological  ])rogress  which  Providence  is  forcing  on  the  world  by  the 
advance  in  knowledge,  to  a  portion  of  which  allusion  has  been  made. 
The  stand-point  of  the  sixteenth  century  had  its  value;  it  was  a  noble 
protest  against  medi;eval  Christianity,  an  epoch  in  spiritual  emancipa- 
tion ;  but  it  was  not  the  same  as  the  stand-point  of  the  first  century, 
and  fur  this  reason,  as  well  as  for  the  others  just  named,  it  is  not  suffi- 
ciently broad  and  simple  and  learned  to  be  the  stand-point  of  the  nine- 
teenth. 


PREFACE.  IX 


in  opening  up  investigations  into  the  origin  of 
knowledge,  led  through  the  spread  of  Sensational- 
ism to  a  new,  the  third,  epoch  of  religious  scepti- 
cism, which  is  generally  identified  with  the  name 
of  Voltaire  and  the  contemporary  philosophers  of 
France.  It  is  unnecessary  to  point  out  the  intel- 
lectual and  moral  means  by  which  Theological  Sci- 
ence outlived  this  new  crisis.  The  battle  was  again 
fought  on  Scientific  ground,  not  on  Theological. 
Lastly,  the  convergence  of  different  lines  of  thought 
in  the  present  day ;  of  the  Intellectualism  of  Ger- 
many* and  the  Positivism  of  France;  of  religious 
dogmatism  and  scientific  scepticism ;  and  the  exist- 
ence of  apparent  discrepancies  between  Theology 
and  the  Sciences,  are  producing  a  fresh  era  of  criti- 
cism, a  fresh  crisis  of  doubt.  Theology  must  again 
listen  to  secular  discoveries,  must  refute  them  or 
readjust  its  doctrines  and  its  methods  to  them ;  and 
the  humblest  attempts,  made  without  sophistry,  in 
an  honest  and  loving  temper,  to  aid  in  such  a  de- 
sirable result,  must  surely  be  useful. 

The  history  thus  given  of  Science  in  Theology, 
i.e.  of  the  relation  which   Science,  Physical  and 

^'  This  term  is  iiiteuded  to  include  the  Spiritualist  tendencies  of  the 
followers  of  Schelling,  as  well  as  the  Rationalist  followers  of  Kant  and 
Heo-el. 


X  PREFACE. 

Mental,  has  held  to  Theology,  will  explain  clearly 
tlic  meaning  of  the  writer  of  -these  pages.  The 
following  sermons  can  only  be  regarded  as  detached 
contribntions,  aiming  to  show  the  mode  in  which 
the  Theology  of  the  present  day  may  incorporate 
the  irrefragable  discoveries  of  modern  science  into 
its  own  system.  They  will  have  performed  their 
office  if  (with  the  assistance  of  the  hints  offered  in 
the  foot-notes)  they  are  the  means,  by  God's  blessing, 
of  suggesting  materials  for  reflection  to  thoughtful 
and  religious  minds.  They  are  published  in  defer- 
ence to  the  wishes  of  very  many  persons,  who  made 
the  request  at  the  times  when  they  were  respect- 
ively preached.* 

The  topic  thus  indicated  offers  abundant  field  for 
investigation  to  those  theological  students  who  de- 
sire to  aid  in  removing  the  difficulties  which  many 
educated  men  in  the  present  day  feel  in  reference 
to  our  holy  religion.  It  may  possibly  assist  their 
studies  to  specify  the  six  following  branches  of  in- 


*  They  are  arranged  according  to  the  internal  connection  of  subject 
rallier  than  the  chronological  order  of  delivery.  In  order  to  complete 
the  series,  one  sermon  has  been  added  which  was  iireached  at  White- 
ball,  but  some  parts  of  it  were  contained  in  a  Sermon  (not  published) 
]»roaehcd  before  the  University. 


PREFACE.  XI 

quiry  which  still,  perhaps,  require  farther  treat- 
ment :* — 

First:  The  relations  of  metaphysical  science  to 
religion  demand  an  investigation  of  the  limits  which 
the  structure  of  the  human  mind  imposes  in  refer- 
ence to  theological  speculation. 

Secondly:  A  comparison  is  needed  between  the 
statements  of  the  sacred  inspired  books  of  the  Jews 
and  the  modem  discoveries  of  comparative  Philo- 
logy and  Mythology,  and  of  historic  data  derivable 
from  recently  excavated  inscriptions. 

Thirdly:  A  discussion  of  the  relations  of  the 
Physical  Sciences  to  the  evidences  of  Natural  Reli- 
gion and  to  the  doctrines  and  inspiration  of  E-e- 
vealed. 

Fourthly:  An  examination  of  the  various  books 
of  the  Holy  Scriptures  as  works  of  literature  of  the 
ages  in  which  the  authors  of  them  lived.t 

*  The  above  remarks,  with  some  of  those  which  immediately  follow, 
express  the  substance  of  an  unpublished  Sermon,  on  *'  The  Epochs  of 
Religious  Scepticism,"  preached  by  the  Author  before  the  University, 
on  St.  Thomas's  Day,  1855.  It  is  for  the  use  of  those  who  requested 
the  publication  of  it  that  they  have  been  introduced  in  this  preface. 

t  In  a  manner,  for  example,  analogous  to  C.  0.  Mliller's  "  History  of 
the  early  Literature  of  Greece."  The  literature  of  the  Jews,  their 
early  poetry,  and  eloquence,  and  chronicles,  and  proverbs,  possesses, 
like  that  of  Greece,  the  value  of  being  an  original  and  (so  to  say)  in- 


XU  PREFACE. 

Fifthly:  A  history  of  the  Science  of  Theology 
and  of  tlic  growth  of  Theological  opinions. 

Sixthly :  A  candid,  reverent,  and  loving  examina- 
tion of  the  light  which  these  various  branches  of 
inquiry  tlirow  on  the  proof,  nature,  and  limits  of 
Inspiration. 

It  is  gratifying  to  think  that  many  Avorks  of  great 
importance  have  recently  appeared  in  reference  to 
most  of  these  lines  of  inquiry.*     The  writer  may 

digenous  literature.  It  has,  therefore,  the  special  claims  for  psycholo- 
gical study  which  only  belong  to  those  literatures  which  we  have  reason 
to  regard  as  original  utterances  of  the  human  intelligence,  and  expres- 
sions of  national  life  and  modes  of  thought.  Such  an  investigation  is 
a  necessary  preliminary  to  a  right  comprehension  of  the  distinctive, 
inspired,  and  supernatural  element  which  enters  into  the  Jewish  litera- 
ture. 

*  The  first  of  these  subjects,  for  example,  has  been  recently  treated 
by  Mr.  Mansel  in  his  Bampton  Lectures,  and  by  Mr,  Maurice  in  his 
reply,  "What  is  Revelation?"  the  second  by  Mr.  Rawlinson,  in  the 
Bampton  Lectures  for  1859;  the  third  by  Prof.  Baden  Powell;  the 
fourth  by  Ewald ;  the  fifth  partially  by  Baur  and  Bishop  Hampden  ; 
(also  the  instructive  writings  of  Professors  Stanley  and  Jowett,  and  the 
matchless  sermons  of  the  lamented  F.  W.  Robertson  supply  many  very 
valuable  hints  in  reference  both  to  this  topic  and  to  the  one  last  men- 
tioned);  the  sixth  by  Dr.  Lee,  by  Mr.  Morell  in  his  "Philosophy  of 
Religion,"  and  by  Dean  Harvey  Goodwin  in  two  of  his  Hulsean  Lec- 
tures. The  above  works  are  only  a  few  of  those  which  have  appeared. 
A  rich  mine,  almost  unworked,  of  novel  and  most  suggestive  thought 
exists  in  the  modern  theological  literature  of  Germany  for  anyone  who 
can  separate  the  pure  metal  from  the  dross.     In  naming  these  works 


PREFACE.  XUl 

perhaps  be  permitted  to  state  that  he  hopes  here- 
after to  discuss  the  third  and  sixth  of  them,  towards 
which  his  studies,  conducted  in  the  retirement  of 
an  Oxford  cloister,  have  through  several  years  been 
made  to  converge. 

the  writer  does  not  by  any  means  intend  indiscriminate  praise  or  ac- 
quiescence. He  bestows  his  praises  as  a  student,  not  as  a  theologian  ; 
the  difference  being  that  a  student  usually  praises  a  work  if  he  finds  it 
suggestive  of  thought  and  instruction ;  while  a  theologian  too  often 
withholds  his  commendations  if  ho  finds  the  sentiments  disagree  with 
his  preconceived  opinions,  i.e.  (to  use  Lord  Bacon's  caustic  expression) 
with  the  idols  of  his  own  den. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 


SERMON    I. 


THE  GRADUAL  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  DIVINE  ATTRIBUTES 
THROUGH  SCRIPTURE  AND  SCIENCE. 

Isaiah  57  :  15. 

PAGE 

The  historic  method  of  studying  the  development  of  theological 
opinions  applied  to  trace  the  knowledge  of  the  Divine  attributes 
derivable  through — I.  Reason,  II.  Revelation,  III.  Science. — I. 
Distinction  between  the  origin  of  the  idea  of  God  and  the  ori- 
gin of  the  idea  of  His  attributes. — The  three  theories  on  the 
former ;  the  successive  efforts  of  the  Greek  philosophers  (Thales, 
Anaxagoras,  Plato,  Aristotle)  in  reference  to  the  latter. — II. 
Views  of  God's  attributes  gradually  unfolded  in  the  successive 
stages  of  Revelation,  as  shown  in  the  thoughts  of  Moses,  David, 
Isaiah,  and  in  Christianity. — III.  Science  regarded  as  a  new 
and  additional  revelation,  given  without  miracle,  through  unin- 
spired genius. — Knowledge  of  the  Divine  attributes  unfolded  by 
means  of  it,  e.  g.  through  Astronomy,  through  the  telescope  and 
microscope,  through  Geology,  Mathematics,  Moral  Science. — 
Inferences,  •  .  •  •  •  •  .     2o 

Note,  On  the  Theological  Ideas  of  some  early  Greek  Philosophers,     51 


xvi  TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 


SERMON    11. 

DIVINE  PROVIDENCE  IN  GENERAL  LAWS. 

Acts  17  :  28. 

PAGE 

Description  of  Athens  in  the  time  of  St  Paul,  and  of  the  Epicu- 
rean and  Stoic  theories  of  Providence. — Statement  of  causes 
which  have  produced  sceptical  theories  on  Providence  in  suc- 
ceeding ages,  viz. :  the  speculations  of  Metaphysicians  and  the 
real  discoveries  of  general  laws  through  Natural  Science  and 
through  Statistics. — The  object  of  the  Sermon  stated  to  be  (I) 
the  discussion  of  the  scientific  discoveries  in  reference  to  the 
invariability  of  Nature's  laws,  and  (II)  the  reconciliation  of 
such  a  view  of  Providence  with  the  idea  of  benevolence  in  God. 
— I.  Illustrations  of  the  fixity  of  Nature's  laws  in  the  example 
of,  («)  earthquakes  (c.  g.  that  of  Lisbon)  and,  (/3)  in  colliery 
explosions. — Proof  that  such  catastrophes  are  not  explicable  as 
judgments  for  sin,  both  from  our  Lord's  teaching  and  from  the 
Geological  discovery  of  the  existence  of  pain  and  death  antece- 
dent to  human  history. — Further  exemplification  of  the  invaria- 
bility of  Nature's  laws  in  (>)  the  permission  of  historical  and 
political  catastrophes  like  the  Indian  rebellion  of  1857. — Theory 
of  such  events. — IT.  Reconciliation  of  the  Divine  government  by 
general  laws,  which  has  thus  been  proved,  with  the  idea  of  be- 
nevolence in  God's  character. — The  "  greatest  happiness"  prin- 
ciple applied  to  this  subject. — Illustration  from  Lagrange's  dis- 
coveries in  Mathematical  Astronomy. — Remarks  on  the  appa- 
rently contradictory  doctrine  of  Special  Providence  taught  in 
Scripture  as  equally  real  with  the  Providence  taught  in  science,     54 

NoTK,  On  Special  Providence,         .  .  .  .  .80 


TABLE   OF    CONTENTS.  XVll 


SERMON    III. 
DIVINE  BENEVOLENCE  IN  THE  ECONOMY  OF  PAIN. 

.    Genesis  47  :  8,  9. 

PAGE 

Description  of  the  Egypt  of  the  age  of  Jacob,  and  of  Jacob's  me- 
lancholy view  of  human  life. — Subject  of  the  Sermon  stated  to 
be  the  Theory  of  Pain,  i.  e.  the  reconciliation  of  the  existence  of 
pain  with  the  attribute  of  benevolence  in  the  Creator  (I)  in  the 
purpose  of  its  administration,  and  (II)  in  the  remedies  provided 
for  its  diminution. — I.  Discussion  of,  (a)  the  pain  which  can  be 
clearly  shown  to  be  corrective,  not  retributive ;  with  illustra- 
tions on  this  subject  from  the  Geological  discovery  that  pain 
existed  antecedently  to  human  history,  and  therefore  antece- 
dently to  human  sin.  (Examination,  in  a  foot-note,  of  the 
alleged  discrepancy  between  this  discovery  and  the  teaching  of 
Holy  Scripture.)  (/S)  The  pain  which  arises  from  accidents  and 
from  the  operation  of  general  laws,  which  is  equally  proved  in 
the  large  scale  to  be  compatible  with  the  Divine  benevolence. — 
11.  Further  proofs  of  God's  kindness  shown  in  the  remedies 
provided  by  Providence,  (1)  in  the  growth  of  medical  science, 
(2)  in  the  growth  of  public  opinion  and  sympathy,  (3)  in  the 
philanthropy  awakened  by  civilization  and  Christianity. — Les- 
sons recently  taught  on  the  importance  of  attention  to  the  secu- 
lar aspect  of  religion,      .  .  .  .  .  .82 

Note,  On  the  Evidence  of  Geology,  designed  to  refute  some  objec- 
tions taken  against  the  science,  .  .  .  •  .103 


XVIU  TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 


SERMON    IV. 

JEWISH  INTERPRETxVnON  OF  PROPHECY. 

IsAiAii  6  :  9. 

P 
The  pertinacity  of  the  Jewish  national  character  shown  to  be  a 
cause  which  has  impeded  attempts  made  for  their  civilization  or 
conversion. — Object  of  the  Sermon  explained  to  be,  (I)  a  sketch 
of  the  history  of  Jewish  iininspired  theological  literature,  and 
(II)  the  statement  of  the  principal  lines  of  argument  used  in 
the  discussion  between  Jews  and  Christians. — I.  Their  theologi- 
cal literature  studied  in  three  epochs: — 1.  From  their  captivity 
to  the  Christian  era. — Effects  of  the  captivity  on  the  Jewish 
national  character  and  position,  with  the  causes  which  created 
that  branch  of  literature  called  the  Targums  ;  2.  From  the  third 
to  the  eighth  century,  a.  d. — Sketch  of  the  two  centres  of  Jew- 
ish life  in  Galilee  and  Mesopotamia. — The  school  of  Biblical 
criticism  creates  the  Masora,  and  that  of  Biblical  interpretation 
produces  the  two  parts  of  the  Talmud,  the  Mishna  and  the 
Gemara ;  ,3.  From  the  tenth  to  the  fifteenth  century  in  Spain. — 
The  literary  condition  of  the  Jews  in  Spain.  Schools  of  theo- 
logical interpretation,  <?.//.  Jarchi,  Aben  Ezra,  Kimchi,  and  of 
philosophical  theology,  c.  g.  Maimonides. — Subsequent  writers, 
Aljarbanel  and  Rabbin  Isaac. — II.  The  controversy  between 
Jew  and  Christian  shown  to  depend  upon  interpretation  of  pro- 
j/^iecies  — The  tests  of  true  interpretation  resolve  themselves 
into  a  question  of  circumstantial  evidence. — Three  lines  of  ob- 
jection urged  liy  the  Jews  against  Christianity  considered  and 
refuted: — 1.  The  historical  and  popular  one,  that  Christianity 
was  rejected  by  contemporary  investigators  ;  2.  The  philosophical 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS.  XIX 

PAGE 

one  of  Maimonides,  that  an  incarnation  of  God  is  impossible, 
and  contrary  to  the  analogy  of  the  old  Hebrew  religion ;  3.  The 
critical  one,  of  the  Spanish  school  of  Jewish  interpreters,  that 
the  Messianic  prophecies  are  misinterpreted  by  Christians. — 
Remarks  on  the  need  of  a  more  correct  system  in  prophetic 
interpretation. — Concluding  inferences,  .  .  .  .106 


SERMON  V. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  THE  HOLY  TRINITY. 

Ephesians  2  :  IS. 

Peculiarity  of  the  doctrine,  among  all  others  in  Christianity,  in 
depending  for  its  proof  entirely  on  revelation. — The  practical 
statements  of  Scripture  in  relation  to  it  contrasted  with  the 
theoretic  terms  of  Creeds.— I.  History  of  controversy  in  refer- 
ence to  the  doctrine  ; — 1.  In  the  Greek  university  of  Alexandria. 
— Sketch  of  the  Neo-Platonic  philosophy,  first  as  a  metaphysi- 
cal, secondly  a  political,  thirdly  a  logical  movement ;  and  its  re- 
lation to  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  5  2.  In  the  rise  of  Socinian- 
isra  in  the  sixteenth  century  5  3.  In  the  philosophical  systems 
of  modern  Germany  and  of  Coleridge. — II.  The  doctrine  which 
is  really  to  be  believed  as  the  residuum  after  the  theories  which 
have  incrusted  the  inspired  teaching  are  removed. — The  idea  of 
personality  shown  to  be  derived  from  human  analogy,  but  to 
convey  a  true  fact. — The  influence  of  science  shown  in  creating 
a  moral  disposition  to  believe  mystery  if  it  rest  on  evidence. — 
Practical  inferences,        ......  138 


XX  TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 

SERMON    VI. 

THE  ATONEMENT. 

Makk  9  :  2. 

PAGE 

The  Transfiguration  studied  : — 1.  In  its  geographical  scene  ;  2.  In 
its  moral  meaning. — The  fact  that  our  Saviours  teaching  en- 
tirely changed  from  this  event  (for  previously  to  it  he  had  not 
proclaimed  the  flict  that  he  was  to  suffer)  used  as  a  proof  that 
the  Transfiguration  had  a  real  meaning  in  reference  to  our  Lord, 
and  was  not  merely  a  parable  acted  to  instruct  the  disciples. — 
(Illustrations  of  similar  mystery  beyond  their  moral  meaning  to 
us  in  our  Lord's  Temptation  and  Agony.) — Statement  of  the 
modern  theories  on  the  purpose  of  our  Lord's  suffering,  and  also 
of  the  Apostolic  teaching  in  reference  to  it. — The  subject  of  the 
Atonement  the  chief  purpose  of  this  Sermon. — I.  An  historic 
sketch  of  the  successive  theories  on  the  Atonement  from  the 
Apostolic  times: — («t)  the  Patristic  to  a.d.  1000,  which  taught 
that  it  was  to  ransom  man  from  the  Devil  (the  view,  e.g.  of 
V  regory  the  Great) ;  [&)  the  Scholastic  (a.d.  1000—1500),  that 
it  was  a  satisfaction  rendered  to  a  broken  law,  either  by  the  life 
of  Christ  (Anselm's  view)  or  the  death  of  Christ  (Aquinas's) ; 
[y)  the  Protestant  view  (of  the  Reformers  and  Grotius,  a.d.  1500 
— 1700),  that  it  was  a  satisfaction  for  sin  viewed  under  the  cor- 
rectioej  as  distinct  from  the  reiribuiive,  theory  of  punishment ; 
{J)  the  view  of  modern  German  philosophers,  that  it  was  only 
to  reconcile  man  to  God,  not  God  to  man. — IL  Refutation  of 
the  first  three  views,  as  going  beyond  inspired  teaching,  and 
constructed  in  forgetfulness  of  the  proofs  which  Physical  Science 
gives,  of  the  poverty  of  human  intelligence,  and  Mental  science 


TABLE    OF   CONTENTS.  XXI 

PAGE 

of  the  extent  to  which  analog-y  is  the  medium  of  revealed  truth. 
— III.  Hints  for  the  refutation  of  the  fourth  view,  as  falling 
short  of  the  truth. — Criticism  on  other  modes  adopted  for  re- 
futing this  fourth  view,  such  as  the  ordinary  one  and  Mr.  Han- 
sel's.— Another  suggested,  resting  on  the  idea  of  gidlt  and  the 
fact  of  sacrifice. — Conclusion  as  to  the  reality  of  Christ's  death 
being  a  true  but  undiscoverable  means  of  reconciling  (so  to  say) 
God  to  man,  as  well  as  man  to  God,        ....  157 


SERMON    VI I. 
LAWS  IN  THE  LIFE  SPIRITUAL. 

2  Timothy  4  :  7. 

Statement  of  the  three  forms  of  human  life,  the  practical,  the  in- 
tellectual, and  the  spiritual. — St.  Paul's  character  studied  as  an 
harmonious  embodiment  of  them  all ;  and  his  influence  esti- 
mated at  different  periods  of  church  history  in  awakening  theo- 
logical speculation  and  stimulating  religious  effort. — The  reli- 
gious life  studied  as  follows: — I.  Is  it  subject  to  fixed  laws? 
Three  opinions  stated ;  (a)  that  which  resolves  it  into  ordinary 
processes  of  moral  psychology  (Butler's  view)  ;  (/2)  that  which 
makes  it  dependent  on  Divine  election  (Calvin's) ;  [y]  that 
which  makes  it  exist  in  a  faculty  transcending  consciousness 
(Schleiermacher's). — II.  Are  its  laws  discoverable? — III.  By 
what  means  ?  By  induction  from  inspired  and  uninspired  reli- 
gious biography. — Enumeration  of  tests  applicable  to  insure 
correctness  in  such  discovery. — IV.  Laws  of  religious  life  deri- 
vable from  St.  Paul's  life,  in  reference  to  conversion,  assurance, 
salvation  in  death,  ......  184 


XXll  TABLE    OF   CONTENTS. 

SERMON    VIII. 

THE  GIFTS  OF  THE  HOLY  GHOST. 
John  14  :  16. 


PAGE 


The  miracle  of  the  descent  of  the  Spirit  compared  with  the  mira- 
cles of  Creation  and  of  Redemption. — Four  great  gifts  of  the 
Spirit  to  be  studied: — I.  Miracle. — The  comparison  of  Chris- 
tianity with  Boodhism  and  Mahometanisra  an  evidence  of  the 
reality  of  ancient  Christian  miracles. — Reason  of  their  disap- 
pearance.— H.  Inspiration. — How  far  it  was,  like  Miracle,  a 
temporary  gift. — III.  Holiness — studied  in  apostolic  Christians 
and  in  the  history  of  the  religious  consciousness — shown  to  be  a 
gift  for  all  time. — IV.  Supernatural  religious  usefulness. — In 
what  sense  perpetual. — Illustrations  from  history  of  religious 
reawalienings  in  later  times,  e.  g.  the  ministry  of  Francis  of 
Assisi,  Methodism,  the  Rev.  C.  Simeon,  &c.,       .  .  .  208 


SERMON    IX. 

PROVIDENCE  IN  POLITICAL  REVOLUTIONS. 

Proveubs  10:4. 

Discussion  of  the  Oriental  (apparently  fatalistic)  modes  of  ex- 
pression in  Scripture. — Instances  of  good  brought  by  Providence 
out  of  evil,  (st)  in  Jewish,  (/3)  in  general,  history. — Application 
of  this  principle  to  the  English  Revolution  in  the  reign  of  Charles 
1,  in  the  form  of  a  proof  that  Providence  overrules  national  con- 
vulsions to  ultimate  good  by  a  law  which  is  impressed  on  society. 


TABLE    OF   CONTENTS.  XXIU 

PAGE 

— The  relation  of  this  argument  shown  to  the  evidence  of  be- 
neficence in  the  Divine  character. — 1.  Political  convulsions  over- 
ruled for  good  in  producing  the  material  welfare  of  man,  the 
advancement  of  liberty. — The  causes  of  revolution  explained, 
and  their  application  to  the  example  of  the  English  Revolution 
by  detailed  reference  to  the  history. — 2.  Their  influence  on  the 
moral  discipline  and  instruction  of  nations. — Concluding  infer- 
ences,      ........  228 

Note,  On  the  Scene  of  the  Execution  of  Charles  i,  .  .  249 


SERMONS. 


SERMON    I. 

THE  GRADUAL  DISCOVERY  OF  THE  DIVINE  ATTRIBUTES 
THROUGH  SCRIPTURE  AND  SCIENCE. 

(PREACHED    BEFORE    THE    UNIVERSITY,    MARCH   4,  1855.) 


ISAIAH    57  :  15. 

'^Thi(s  saith  the  liiyh  and  lofiij  One  that  inliahiteth  eternity,  whose 
name  is  Holy;  I  dwell  in  the  high  and  holy  place,  with  him  also 
that  is  of  a  contrite  and  humble  spirit,  to  revive  the  spirit  of  the 
humble,  and  to  revive  the  heart  of  the  contrite  ones^ 

Ijt  these  words  the  prophet  combines  the  majesty  of  God 
with  His  mercy,  the  magnificence  of  His  infinite  power 
with  the  tenderness  of  His  unbounded  condescension.  It 
is  this  combination  of  attributes  which  men  are  apt  to 
regard  as  almost  incredible, — that  He  who  inhabiteth  eter- 
nity can  yet  dwell  with  a  being  so  inconsiderable  as  man. 
If  you  tell  them  of  the  greatness  of  God's  nature,  they 
think  it  impossible  that  He  can  concern  Himself  with 
reviving  the  spirit  of  the  humble  ;  or  inform  them  that  He 
stoops  to  dwell  in  the  heart  of  the  contrite,  they  can  hardly 
imagine  that  He  is  the  high  and  lofty  One  who  inhabiteth 

3 


2G  SERMON    I. 

eternity.  If  the  Deity  be  exhibited  as  busied  with  what 
they  deem  insignificant,  their  inference  is  that  He  cannot 
be  attentive  to  what  is  vast ;  or  if  He  be  represented  as 
occupied  with  what  is  great,  there  is  an  immediate  appre- 
hension that  the  minute  must  escape  His  observation. 

Nor  is  this  disposition  to  separate  the  properties  which 
the  prophet  combines  more  observable  than  the  variation 
which  it  has  undergone  in  different  ages  and  under  different 
circumstances.  The  progress,  or  alteration,  which  takes 
place  in  human  opinions  and  belief  is,  though  less  ob- 
served, as  real  as  that  which  occurs  in  the  world  of  events. 
A  rise  and  fall  of  empires  is  as  truly  going  forward  in  the 
intellectual  as  in  the  historical  world.  Nor  can  there  be  a 
more  instructive  mode  of  viewing  a  truth  than  by  showing 
the  fluctuation  of  human  thought  in  relation  to  it.*  Thus, 
in  reference  to  the  present  doctrine,  there  have  been  ages 
of  the  world  when  those  who  held  fast  their  faith  (imper- 
fect though  it  was)  in  Providence,  have  failed  to  ascend  to 
the  idea  of  a  Being  of  infinite  greatness ;  while  those,  on 
the  other  hand,  on  whose  minds  speculation  had  forced  the 
conviction  of  man's  unmeasured  inferiority,  have  doubted 
that  an  unwearied  Providence  could  be  engaged  on  his 
behalf.f  And,  in  the  present  age,  it  is  often  found  that 
those  who  believe  in  a  special  Providence  on  the  authority 

■■^  It  is  probable  that  the  sole  permanent  contribution  to  knowledge 
which  the  philosophy  of  Hegel  will  be  found  to  have  made,  will  be  in 
its  creation  of  the  Msioric  method  of  studying  opinions, — a  method 
which  was  in  his  system  a  necessity  arising  from  his  point  of  view,  but 
which  is  worthy  of  imitation  by  those  who  differ  from  his  motives  and 
principles. 

t  These  doubts  marked  th(?  philosophy  of  the  early  part  of  the  last 
century  which  followed  on  the  great  discoveries  which  Newton  bad 
made  in  the  preceding  age.  Pope's  "Essay on  Man"  gives  expression 
to  such  doubts,  borrowed  prol)ably  IVom  Bolingbroke. 


ON   DIVINE    ATTRIEUTES.  27 

of  Scripture,  do  not  understand  that  general  Providence 
Avhich  is  established  bj  the  evidence  of  science ;  or,  that 
conversely  insisting  upon  the  administration  of  the  universe 
by  a  system  of  general  laws,  they  fail  to  reconcile  it  with 
the  revealed  account  of  God's  interposition  by  miracles  and 
special  Providence. 

It  will  not,  therefore,  I  should  hope,  be  an  unprofitable 
employment  if  we  trace  by  what  means  and  with  what 
degree  of  increasing  evidence  the  tAVO  doctrines  of  the 
greatness  of  the  Divine  attributes  and  His  condescending 
mercy  have  been  made  known  to  man  ;  and,  afterwards, 
attempt  briefly  to  deduce  from  the  subject  lessons  for  our 
religious  improvement. 

There  are  three  means  by  which  men  have  been  made 
the  recipients  of  ideas  concerning  the  Divine  Being,  and 
the  relations  which  lie  sustains  towards  us,  viz. :  Reason, 
Revelation,  and  Science.*  Let  us  try  to  discover  what 
assistance  these  respective  sources  have  contributed  to- 
wards the  comprehension  of  the  two  doctrines  which  we 
are  studying. 

1.  When  we  point  to  Reason  as  one  source  from  which 
man  has  learned  the  greatness  or  the  condescension  of  God, 
we  do  not  intend  to  express  any  opinion  on  the  question 
whether  the  first  idea  of  a  Divine  Being  was  extracted  by 
the  mere  light  of  natural  reason,  or  was  a  direct  gift  of 
revelation.  The  question  which  concerns  us  is  not  as  to 
the  means  by  which  men  first  came  to  learn  the  idea  of 
God,  but  rather  the  process  through  which,  when  that  idea 
was  already  present,  they  first  attained  to  a  conception  of 
His  infinity.     The  inquiry  into  the  origin  of  the  idea  will 

*  By  the  term  "  Reason,"  is  here  meant  metaphysical  speculation ; 
and  by  "  Scieiice,"  modern  inductive  discoveries. 


28  SERMON   I. 

always  be  a  matter  of  uncertainty,  inasmuch  as  it  belongs 
to  that  class  of  questions  which  concern  the  first  origin  of 
things,  such,  for  example,  as  those  which  treat  of  the  origin 
of  matter,  or  life,  or  language,  or  society,— questions  which 
not  only  relate  to  facts  anterior  to  the  dawn  of  history,  but 
for  the  explanation  of  which  man  hardly  possesses  the 
faculties.*  Hence  there  will  doubtless  always  be  distinct 
opinions  on  the  inquiry.  Some,t  who  conceive  that  man 
is  at  his  birth  intellectually  a  blank,  will  suppose  that  he 
learns  the  idea  gradually  by  experience  and  observation ; 
others,!  supposing  themselves  unable  by  such  a  process  to 
explain  how  the  world  became  furnished,  at  the  very  earliest 
and  most  rudimentary  periods  of  its  history,  with  an  idea 
which  would  appear  rather  to  be  the  discovery  (if  discovery 
at  all)  of  cultivated  powers,  have  thought  that  the  human 
mind  is  not  ushered  into  the  world  a  blank,  but  is  furnished 
with  a  small  stock,  as  it  were,  of  rational  principles,  from 
which  germinates  the  variety  of  knowledge  which  forms  the 
mental  inheritance  of  man.  Others,§  again,  on  the  ground 
both  of  philosophy  and  of  Scripture,  decline  to  resign  their 
belief  that  the  ideas  of  God  and  of  duty  were  originally 
imparted  by  direct  revelation  from  heaven  ;  conceiving 
that  as  a  savage  race,  when  sunk  below  a  certain  stage  of 
barbarism,  can  never  rescue  itself  from  its  degradation 
without  being  raised  out  of  it  by  means  of  external  agency, 

^  The  distinction  here  designed  is  neatly  expressed  by  Chalmers 
(Introduction  to  his  "  Bridgewater  Treatise")  as  that  which  exists 
between  the  "  collocations  of  matter '  and  the  "  laws  of  nature."  Modern 
science  is  content  to  restrict  itself  to  the  latter  of  these  two  branches  of 
inquiry,  and  to  leave  the  former  to  metaphysicians. 

t  The  sensational  school  of  philosophers. 

X  The  idealist  school. 

?  Locke  may  be  perhaps  taken  as  a  type  of  this  view  ("Essay  on 
Human  Understanding,"  b.  iv). 


ON   DIVINE   ATTRIBUTES.  29 

SO  the  race  of  man  could  never  have  taken  the  first  step  in 
religious  knowledge  if  Providence  had  not  communicated 
to  it  the  rudiments. 

But  whichever  of  these  views  you  may  adopt  as  to  the 
origin  of  the  idea  of  God,  it  must  ever  be  an  important 
inquiry  to  discover  how  much  mankind  can  learn  or  have 
learned  of  God,  and  of  the  relation  which  He  bears  to  us, 
without  the  aid  of  further  revelation  than  the  primitive  one 
which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world.  The 
study  of  natural  religion  (as  such  inquiry  is  called)  not 
only  thus  affords  a  valuable  and  independent  support  to 
the  truths  which  revelation  asserts,  but  also  enables  us  to 
see  what  were  the  limits  within  which  that  which  may  be 
known  of  God  had  been  manifested  to  men,  which  an 
Apostle*  thought  left  them  without  excuse.  Above  all,  the 
contrast  of  that  darkness  amid  which  they  attempted  to 
grope  their  way  to  truth,  will  prepare  us  for  seeing  the 
noonday  brightness  which  has  been  thrown  over  these  doc- 
trines in  the  later  ages  of  the  world. 

It  fortunately  happens  that  we  need  not  enter  into  any 
speculations  on  this  question,  for  history  supplies  an  in- 
stance of  a  nation  where  a  natural  religion  was  actually 
created  by  the  light  of  reason  ;  or  where,  possibly,  to  speak 
more  truly,  the  fragment  of  truth,  which  formed  the  last 
relic  of  an  earlier  faith,  was  matured  and  developed  into 
greater  purity.  The  philosophers  of  Greece  worked  out  a 
natural  theology. 

It  was  hardly,  indeed,  to  be  expected  that  such  a  sub- 
ject would  be  overlooked  by  that  people,  which  stands  con- 
spicuous above  all  others  of  ancient  or  modern  time  for  the 
natural  gift  of  commanding  intellectual  faculties,  and  the 

*  Rom.  1  :  20. 
3* 


30  SERMON   I. 

power   to   appreciate  the   true   and   the  beautiful;  whose 
influence,  unlike  that  of  other  nations,  has  been  greater 
since  its  decline  than  when  flourishing  in  greatness,  and 
whose  writers,  as  long  as  mankind  can  appreciate  through 
the   medium  of  an   unrivalled  language,  the  brilliancy  of 
unrivalled   thoughts,  will  continue   to  hold  (as  they  have 
ever  held)  the  same  position  in  relation  to  civilization  which 
the  Jewish  nation  has  sustained  in  relation  to  the  growth 
of  religion.     Yet  the  very  process  by  which  the  writers  of 
that  acute  people  discovered  their  natural  theology,  no  less 
than  the  results  at  which  they  arrived  by  it,  afford  the  best 
evidence  both  of  the  difliculty  of  the  inquiry  and  the  value 
of  a  Divine  revelation.    By  successive  steps,  and  after  long 
intervals  of  time,  one  and  another  notion  was  added  to 
develop  into  a  clear  conception  their  idea  of  the  Divine 
Being.     AVe  cannot,  perhaps,  find  a  more  comprehensive 
view  of  the  opinions  at  which  they  had  arrived  in  the  ma- 
turity of  thought,  than  that  which  is  contained  in  a  brief 
passage  of  one  of  their  most  brilliant  writers,  who,  in  the 
fourth  century  before  Christ,  unfolded  his  own  view  of  the 
Divine  Being,  and  borrowed  from  his  predecessors  those 
elements   which    they  had   respectively  supplied.      "The 
great  first  cause,"  Plato  teaches,  "is  endowed  with  life, 
with   intelligence,   with  goodness."*      Of  the   properties 
which  are  stated  in  this  noble  conception  of  the  Divine 
Being,  the  last  alone  is  his  own  discovery.     When  he  thus 
wrote  two  centuries  had  elapsed  from  the  time  when  the 
question  had  been  first  proposed,  and  it  will  be  instructive 
to  remark  the   mode  in  which  the  inquiry  had  been  from 

*  cn-4yvXo;,  tVj/oi-f,  dyaOds.  (Plato,  Phileb.  p.  ?>0.)  To  this  cnumeratlou 
ought  to  be  added  the  attributes  given  in  Plato's  "Republic"  (b.  ii), 
viz.,  "  the  cause  of  goodness,"  "  unchanged"  by  external  agencies, 
"  unchan;]jing"  from  internal. 


ON    DIVINE   ATTRIBUTES.  31 

time  to  time  suspended,  and  the  periods  at  which  the 
elements  in  the  answer  of  it  were  respectively  furnished.'*' 
It  was  towards  the  end  of  the  seventh  century,  before 
the  Christian  era,  at  a  time  when  continental  Greece  had 
not  emerged  from  her  early  barbarism,  that  the  Greek 
colonies  which  fringed  the  shores  of  Asia  Minor  and  of 
Southern  Italy  attained  that  state  of  material  civilization 
in  which  superior  minds  are  able  to  devote  their  leisure  to 
speculation. t  It  was  then  that  the  series  of  inquiries  com- 
menced, often  daring,  more  often  ineffectual,  into  the  causes 
of  the  physical  and  moral  world  which  has  formed  the 
noblest  occupation  of  the  mind  from  that  time  to  the  pre- 
sent. We  are  apt,  as  we  look  back  upon  that  period,  to 
undervalue  the  step  which  society  then  took.  The  dis- 
coveries, as  they  were  called,  which  were  then  made,  seem 
to  us  so  rudimentary  or  so  unreal,  that  we  are  in  danger 
of  misunderstanding  the  reach  of  thought  which  was  neces- 
sary to  attain  even  to  them.|  It  was  then  that  society 
was  passing  through  one  of  those  changes  which  mark  the 
intellectual  growth   of  every  nation.     It  was  awakening 

*  The  writer  of  this  Sermon  wishes  to  state,  that  more  careful  study 
of  Greek  philosophy,  during  the  four  years  since  the  Sermon  Avas 
preached,  has  convinced  him  that  he  has  here  over-estimated  the 
amount  of  theological  speculation  which  existed  among  the  early  Greek 
thinkers.  He  accordingly  now  adds  a  note  at  the  end  of  the  Sermon, 
to  correct  some  points  stated  in  the  text. 

t  For  the  study  of  this  flourishing  period  in  the  Greek  colonies,  see 
Grote's  ''History  of  Greece,"  iii,  ch.  22  ;  and  Thirlwall,  ii,  ch.  12. 

X  The  advance  of  thought  which  Thales  shows  beyond  his  predeces- 
sors may  be  illustrated  by  the  transition  which  Comte  points  out  from 
the  theological  to  the  metaphysical,  of  the  three  stages  through  which 
he  supposed  that  knowledge  passed.  Thales  attained  the  idea  of  cause 
and  of  ?f«i7y  of  cause.  Measured  by  the  fetish-like  conception  of  power 
which  existed  antecedently,  some  progress  may  be  seen  even  in  these 
crude  notions. 


32  SERMON    I. 

from  a  state  of  blind  superstition  to  one  of  reflection.  We 
may  understand  it  by  comparing  it  with  the  resurrection 
of  the  mind  of  Europe  in  the  eleventh  century  of  the  Chris- 
tian era,  from  the  intellectual  death  which  had  passed  alike 
over  civilization  and  religion  after  the  fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  The  contrast  is  not  more'  marked  between  the 
state  of  Europe  in  those  ages,  when  infantile  superstitions, 
such  as  the  legends  of  the  saints,  were  at  once  the  object 
of  popular  faith  and  the  medium  of  religious  education,  and 
that  manly  state  of  sentiment  which  was  aroused  in  Europe 
by  the  growth  of  the  scholastic  philosophy,*  than  between 
the  condition  of  Greek  life  which  preceded  and  which  fol- 
lowed the  speculations,  crude  though  they  were,  of  the 
early  thinkers  of  Ionia.  For  those  men  threw  aside  the 
polytheism  of  their  early  education,  and  learned  to  regard 
the  cause  of  ail  things  as  one ;  and,  in  doing  so,  they  took 
a  step  as  it  were  to  a  conception  of  the  greatness  of  the 
Divine  Being.  Yet  the  diihculties  which  beset  their  way 
will  be  seen  from  the  fact  that  the  leader  of  that  band, 
Thales,  in  spite  of  possessing  on  the  one  hand  the  ideas  of 
God  as  a  first  great  cause,  and  also  the  idea  of  the  unity 
of  this  cause,  was  unable  to  combine  the  two  so  as  to  infer 
the  Divine  Personality.  Strange  indeed,  yet  so  it  was, 
that  men  could  understand  the  unity — nay,  the  infinity — 
of  the  first  cause  before  they  were  able  to  discover  that 
those  attributes  imply  the  existence  of  a  personal  mind. 

'•'  The  bciKificiiil  influence  here  attributed  to  schohisticism  is  only  in 
its  value  as  a  discipline.  It  taught  little  real  truth ;  but  it  exercised 
the  faculties.  Its  character  has  been  well  described  as  being  "  the 
noblest  philosophy  ever  ruined  for  want  of  matter,  as  the  cotemporary 
IVoubadour  poetry  was  the  noblest  poetry  ever  ruined  for  want  of 
J'orm.''^  The  date  of  the  eleventh  century  above  given  is  only  intended 
to  indicate  the  dawn  of  intellectual  reillumination.  The  influence  of 
scholasticism  was  in  the  twelfth  and  two  followinfj  centuries. 


ON    DIVINE   ATTRIBUTES.  33 

The  inquiry,  as  if  in  marvellous  confirmation  of  the 
difBcultj  with  which  the  reason  ascends  to  a  true  idea  of 
God,  was  not  resumed  for  nearly  two  centuries,  notwith- 
standing the  ceaseless  speculations  by  which  that  period 
was  characterized.  The  names  of  those  early  thinkers 
deserve  perhaps  to  be  recorded,  for  even  when  the  light  of 
their  teaching  reaches  us  through  the  distance  of  twenty- 
three  centuries,  they  shine  like  luminaries  of  the  first  mag- 
nitude. It  was  Anaxagoras  who  had  the  honor  of  reviving 
the  inquiry,  and  who  was  the  first  to  arrive  by  the  exa- 
mination of  nature  at  the  idea  of  an  infinite  personal  intel- 
ligence as  its  Creator  and  Governor.  The  inquiry  did  not, 
however,  end  with  him.  Suspended  during  the  half  century 
of  intellectual  scepticism  and  of  political  commotion  which 
followed  him,  it  was  resumed  by  Plato,  who  superadded  (as 
we  before  stated)  to  the  ideas  of  life  and  personality  in 
God  the  idea  of  moral  attributes  and  a  moral  providence. 

These  three  ideas,  the  discovery  of  the  three  individuals 
whose  names  have  been  mentioned,  form  the  collective  con- 
ception which  the  period  of  the  most  acute  speculation 
could  attain  in  reference  to  the  Divine  Being;*  and  the 
subject  affords  us  matter  for  serious  thought ;  for  you  will 
notice  that,  while  by  dint  of  successive  efforts  they  obtained 
an  indistinct  glimpse  of  God's  attributes,  they  were  hardly 


*  It  may  be  thought  that  some  notice  ought  to  have  been  taken  of 
the  theology  of  Aristotle.  The  omission  was  made  when  the  Sermon 
was  written,  because  Aristotle's  pantheism  seemed  a  step  backwards 
from  Plato's  monotheism,  rather  than  an  advance.  The  writer  would 
at  the  present  time  justify  the  omission,  because,  under  the  view  which 
he  now  takes  of  Plato's  theology,  he  would  consider  Aristotle's  view  a 
mere  variation  in  statement,  not  in  the  point  of  view ;  the  Divinity  of 
Plato  being  the  highest  formal  cause,  that  of  Aristotle  the  highest 
fnal  cause.     In  neither  view  is  Deity  a  person  ;  in  both  an  abstraction. 


34  SERMON   I. 

able  to  make  any  discovery  of  the  relations  which  He  sus- 
tains toward  man.     Compare  with  their  views  the  language 
of  Isaiah  in  our  text,  and  you  Avill  find  his  views  as  much 
superior  to  theirs  in  conception  as  they  are  loftier  in  ex- 
pression.    "  Thus  saith  the  high  and  lofty  One  that  inhabit- 
eth  eternity,  whose  name  is  Holy;  I  dwell  in  the  high  and 
holy  place ;  with  him  also  that  is  of  a  contrite  and  humble 
spirit,  to  revive  the  spirit  of  the  humble  and  to  revive  the 
heart  of  the  contrite  ones."     The  Greeks  could  discover  in 
an  humble  degree  the  One  that  inhabiteth  eternity ;  in  some 
sense  they  could  even  perceive  His  moral  attributes  and 
see  that  His  name  is  Holy  ;  but  they  could  know  nothing 
of  his  dwelling  with  the  contrite.    Nay,  that  which  is  more 
striking  is  the  fact  that,  in  proportion  as  they  attained  to 
the  one  idea,  they  lost  the  other.     Under  the  vulgar  poly- 
theism they  had  been  wont  to  regard  the  gods  as  conversant 
with  the  affairs  of  men,  as  rewarders  of  good  and  avengers 
of  evil ;  but  when  they  rose  to  the  idea  of  God  as  a  cause, 
as  infinite,  as  intelligent,  they  conceived  Him.  as  reposing 
in  the  perfection  of  His  own  blessedness,  and  as  regardless 
of  the  insignificant  affairs  of  mortals.     It  was  revelation 
alone  which  combined  the  two  ideas.    The  very  combination 
is   one   of  those   thoughts   of  God,  which   are  not  man's 
thoughts,  to  which  man  could   not  by  mere  reason  pene- 
trate. 

2.  We  proceed  accordingly  to  notice  the  discoveries  on 
this  subject  gradually  unfolded  by  Divine  Revelation, — the 
successive  steps  of  advancing  knowledge  through  which 
Providence  has  brought  mankind. 

We  need  not  pause  to  examine  what  was  the  information 
which  the  Hebrew  patriarchs  were  permitted  to  enjoy  con- 
cerning the  greatness  and  condescension  of  God,  because 
there  is  one  remarkable  epoch  pointed  out  in  the  Scrip- 


ON   DIVINE    ATTRIBUTES.  35 

turcs  at  ^vhich  human  knowledge  on  these  subjects  Avas 
suddenly  increased. 

An  exiled  shepherd  was  the  subject  of  the  revelation.* 
A  vision  was  presented  of  a  burning  bush,  and  to  the  mind 
of  the  praying  shepherd,  and  through  him  to  his  nation 
and  the  world,  was  vouchsafed  the  knowledge  of  that  awe- 
inspiring  and  mysterious  attribute  of  Deity,  "I  am  that  I 
am."  We  cannot  measure  the  amount  of  religious  know- 
ledge which  Moses  previously  possessed.  Undoubtedly  he 
had  some  conception  of  the  spirituality  and  unity  of  God 
and  of  the  responsibility  of  man,  and  it  is  hardly  to  be 
supposed  that  his  experience  had  not  sometimes  brought 
home  to  him  the  consciousness  of  the  ancient  patriarch, 
*'  Truly  God  was  here,  and  I  knew  it  not."  But  it  was 
then  for  the  first  time  that  he  was  taught  to  realize  dis- 
tinctly that  the  God  of  Abraham  was  infinite  and  omni- 
present, and  that  these  attributes  were  the  pledge  that  He 
would  fulfil  His  promises  to  the  Jewish  people.  The  very 
scene  of  the  vision  was  suited  to  its  subject.  It  lay  among 
the  solitudes  of  Horeb.  Moses  was  alone,  surrounded  only 
by  those  grand  types  of  unchanging  nature,  "  the  everlast- 
ing hills."  And  he  was  made  to  feel  that,  even  there, 
God^was  with  him;  that  there  was  no  such  thing  as  soli- 
tude, that  every  spot  through  the  expanse  of  space  was  in- 
habited by  the  Almighty  ;  that  at  any  moment  the  heavens 
might  reveal  to  him  His  presence ;  that  though  fancying 
himself  in  loneliness,  he  was  in  contact  with  his  Maker. 

And  if  any  one  would  wish  to  remark  the  efi"ect  which 
that  revelation  of  the  infinity  of  God  had  on  the  mind  of 
Moses,  let  him  turn  to  the  record  of  the  Creation  which  he 
has  prefixed  to  his  writings, — a  record  which  contains  con- 

^^  Exodus  3  :  2-9. 


36  SERMON    T. 

ceptions  so  sublime  that  they  have  even  been  quoted  with 
admiration  by  the  heathen  critic  ;*  and  which,  whatever 
may  be  the  interpretation  which  science  shall  ultimately 
put  upon  them,  must  remain  the  most  elevated  conception 
of  Creation  ever  presented  ;  for  there  are  many  noble 
thoughts  of  God  in  the  Scriptures,  and  many  which  must 
excite  marvel,  but  there  is  not  one  more  noble  than  Moses's 
narrative  of  the  dawn  of  Creation. |  That  conception  is 
grand  which  the  Bible  affords  us  when  it  presents  the 
thought  of  the  Divine  Beinsj  as  the  sustainer  of  the  whole 
universe,  animate  and  inanimate,  that  in  Him  we  live,  and 
move,  and  have  our  being ;  so  that,  whether  we  look  out 
upon  the  stars  as  they  march  in  their  brightness,  or  hear 
the  winds  as  they  sweep  by  in  their  rushings,  or  watch  the 
waters  as  they  flow  in  their  tides,  all,  all  are  sustained  by 
His  hand  and  regulated  by  His  will ;  so  that  there  moves 
not  a  being  even  on  the  outskirts  of  Creation  that  does  not 
draw  animation  from  His  fulness,  for  He  filleth  all  in  all. 
That  is,  if  possible,  a  still  more  sublime  conception — the 
vision  which  the  Bible  shows  us  in  the  distant  future  of  the 
spreading  of  a  great  white  throne :  upon  it  sits  the  Ancient 
of  Days ;  sea  and  land  yield  up,  in  the  twinkling  of  an 
eye,  the  myriads  which  are  held  in  the  sepulchre ;  all  are 
marshalled  there — the  kings  and  great  ones  renowned  in 


■*  Longinus  on  the  Sublime,  eh.  9. 

t  The  thought,  and  in  some  cases  the  language,  of  the  next  page  is 
borrowed  from  one  or  two  sermons  of  the  Rev.  H.  Melvill.  I  wish  to 
take  this  opportunity  of  saying  that,  shortly  before  writing  the  present 
Sermon,  I  had  read  several  sermons  by  this  eloquent  preacher;  and  I 
believe  that,  in  composing  the  second  head  of  this  Sermon,  1  borrowed 
a  few  scattered  expressions  from  him  consciously,  and  probably  some 
unconsciously.  I  wish  to  make  this  general  acknowledgment,  not  being 
able  to  remember  the  exact  references  to  his  works. 


ON    DIVINE   ATTRIBUTES.  37 

history,  the  noble  and  the  mean,  the  learned  and  the  igno- 
rant. The  remotest  corners  of  the  earth,  the  most  distant 
ages  of  time,  contribute  their  spirits  to  the  tremendous 
gathering  of  those  who  are  to  receive  their  everlasting 
doom.  Inanimate  nature  seems  (as  it  were)  to  sympathize 
with  the  solemn  scene  ;  for  the  earth  and  the  heavens  flee 
away,  and  there  is  found  no  place  for  them. 

But,  grand  as  are  these  conceptions,  that  seems  still 
grander  where  Moses  makes  us  spectators  of  the  birth  of 
created  nature.  He  calls  up  to  our  imagination  a  season 
in  the  distant  depths  of  a  past  eternity,  when  the  assem- 
blage of  stars  and  of  systems  which  strew  the  fields  of 
space  did  not  exist ;  when  no  glorious  or  undying  spirits, 
angelic  or  human,  lived  to  comprehend  the  God  that  had 
given  them  being.  Nothing  ever  broke  that  wondrous 
silence  save  the  voice  of  the  Eternal  One,  who  existed  from 
the  unfathomable  depths  of  eternity.  God  was  there  then, 
as  noAV,  in  three  Persons,  the  ever-blessed  Father,  Son,  and 
Holy  Ghost.  But  the  universe  held  only  God,  and  in  that 
Divine  Being  was  the  attribute  of  benevolence,  infinite  then 
as  now ;  and  that  benevolence  craved  the  being  girt  round 
by  dependent  creatures.  It  seemed  not  good  to  God  to 
continue  alone ;  the  sublime  loneliness  was  infringed ;  the 
word  was  spoken,  and  the  depths  of  space  became  strewed 
with  worlds ;  and  immortal  spirits,  sparklings  of  His  infi- 
nity, thronged  His  presence.*  ''  The  morning  stars  sang 
together,  and  all  the  sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy."  Such 
is  the  conception  of  the  Divine  Being  which  Moses  has 
presented  to  us,  and  from  it  we  may  understand,  better 


"  The  idea  in  this  passage  was  suggested  b}^  some  remarks  in  Dr. 
Harris's  "  Preadamite  Earth." 

4 


38  SERMON    T. 

than  from  words,  what  was  the  rcvehition  of  the  Infinite 
vouchsafed  to  him  at  Horeb. 

We  may  also  be  sure  that  we  shall  not  err  if  we  regard 
Moses's  state  of  religious  knowledge  as  the  highest  limit  to 
which  mankind  attained  under  the  Law.  In  tracing  the 
growth  of  ideas  on  this  subject  in  later  dispensations,  we 
should  not  forget  that  the  progress  of  man's  religious  know- 
ledge has  been  marked  by  epochs  rather  than  by  continuous 
advancement.  Some  new  revelation  has  given  a  sudden 
expansion  to  it,  and  it  has  then  remained  stationary  for  a 
period.  Thus  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  Law  is 
separated  from  the  age  of  the  Prophets,  which  commenced 
with  Samuel,  by  a  chasm  of  nearly  four  hundred  years, 
— a  period  almost  as  long  as  that  which  intervened 
betAveen  the  voice  of  the  last  prophet,  Malachi,  and 
the  coming  of  St.  John  the  Baptist, — an  interval  during 
which  revelation  was  wholly  silent,  in  which,  in  the  striking 
language  of  Scripture,  "  there  was  no  open  vision."  Ac- 
cordingly, when  the  voice  of  inspiration  again  is  heard,  the 
ideas  which  it  utters  are  really,  on  some  subjects,  so  much 
in  advance  of  those  which  were  presented  by  the  Law,  that 
there  is  correctness  in  the  ancient  view  which  regarded  the 
Law  and  the  Prophets  as  two  distinct  revelations.  Though 
this  improvement  in  religious  knowledge  is  especially  evi- 
dent in  the  light  which  the  Psalms  and  Prophecies  cast  on 
the  meaning  of  sacrifice  and  on  the  coming  of  the  Messiah, 
yet  some  degree  of  advance  may  also  be  traced  in  those 
doctrines  which  form  the  present  subject  of  consideration. 

For  no  one  can  read  the  Psalms  without  feeling  that 
their  writers,  and  especially  David,  had  more  elevated 
views,  both  of  the  greatness  of  God  and  His  condescending 
love,  than  were  furnished  to  pious  minds  under  the  Law. 
What  frequent  intimations,  for  example,  are  to  be  found 


ON    DIVINE   ATTRIBUTES.  39 

that  the  contemplation  of  the  visible  creation  ought  to  have 
an  efficacy  in  inspiring  belief  in  God,  and  adoration  and 
love  of  His  perfect  attributes ;  yet  how  equally  marked  is 
David's  unwavering  faith  in  the  presence  of  God  with  the 
heart  of  the  praying  worshipper  !  His  own  early  life  had 
probably  prepared  his  mind  for  inspirations  of  this  cha- 
racter. We  can  easily  imagine  that  when  wandering 
together  with  a  band  of  attendants  amid  the  rugged  high- 
lands that  mark  the  physical  features  of  Southern  Pales- 
tine, hunted  down  by  the  malice  of  an  implacable  foe,  he 
would  be  compelled  to  pass  many  days  and  nights  with  no 
other  employment  than  the  communings  with  nature,  and 
with  the  God  of  nature  through  his  works,  which  would 
arise  in  his  poetic  and  pious  mind.  It  was  in  deserts, 
indeed,  similar  to  those  in  which  he  was  an  exile,  that  the 
ancestors  of  his  nation  had  wandered  for  a  generation  ;  yet 
they  had  recorded  no  conceptions  such  as  his.  Their  faith 
in  God's  protection  may  have  been  as  real  as  his,  but  it 
cannot  have  been  as  elevated ;  for  they  believed  in  a  God 
whose  visible  manifestation,  as  a  cloud  by  day  and  a  meteor 
by  night,  was  the  proof  of  his  presence  ;  but  David,  without 
such  miraculous  evidence,  was  able  to  rise,  by  meditation  on 
His  works,  to  the  conviction  of  the  immeasurable  greatness 
of  that  Being,  of  whose  support  he  felt  nevertheless  sure, 
and  whose  presence,  in  some  real  but  humble  sense,  he 
found  within  his  own  heart. 

What  can  exceed,  for  example,  his  conception  of  God 
expressed  in  the  words,  "  The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of 
God,  and  the  firmament  showeth  His  handiwork.  Day 
unto  day  uttereth  speech,  and  night  unto  night  showeth 
knowledge.  Their  line  is  gone  out  through  all  the  earth, 
and  their  words  to  the  end  of  the  world."*  And,  passing 
*  Psalm  19  :  1-4. 


40  SERMON    I. 

by  means  of  analogy  from  these  physical  to  the  moral  laws 
of  God's  judgments,  he  adds,  "More  to  be  desired  are  they 
than  gold,  yea,  than  much  fine  gold ;  by  them  is  thy  ser- 
vant taught,  and  in  keeping  of  them  there  is  great  reward." 
Again :  "  When  I  consider  the  heavens,  the  works  of  Thy 
hands,  the  moon  and  the  stars  which  Thou  hast  ordained, 
what  is  man  that  Thou  art  mindful  of  him,  or  the  son  of 
man,  that  Thou  so  regardest  him  ?  Thou  hast  made  him 
a  little  lower  than  the  angels,  and  hast  crowned  him  with 
glory  and  honor."*  Again:  ''Who  is  so  great  a  God  as 
our  God,  that  hath  His  dwelling  so  high,  and  yet  humbleth 
Himself  to  behold  the  things  there  are  in  heaven  and  on 
eartli  ?"t  How  noble  are  these  thoughts  concerning  God's 
greatness  !  Similarly  concerning  His  eternity,  in  the  pas- 
sages :  "  From  everlasting  to  everlasting  Thou  art  God." 
"  Thy  kingdom  is  an  everlasting  kingdom,  and  Thy  dominion 
endureth  throughout  all  generations.  The  Lord  upholdeth 
all  that  fall,  and  raiseth  up  all  those  that  be  bowed  down."{ 
And  (to  allude  only  to  one  more  instance)  what  words  could 
more  nobly  express  the  overwhelming  contemplation  of 
God's  omnipresence,  or  more  separate  the  infinite  Being 
from  the  finite,  than  the  passage,  "  Whither  shall  I  go  from 
Thy  spirit,  or  whither  shall  I  flee  from  Thy  presence  ?  If  I 
ascend  up  into  heaven,  Thou  art  there  ;  if  I  make  my  bed  in 
hell,  behold  Thou  art  there.  If  I  take  the  wings  of  the 
morning,  and  dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  sea,  even 
there  shall  Thy  hand  lead  me,  and  Thy  right  hand  shall  hold 
me.  If  I  say.  Surely  the  darkness  shall  cover  me ;  even 
the  night  shall  be  light  about  me  ;  yea,  the  darkness  hideth 


*  Psalm  8  :  3-5. 

t  Ps.  118  :  5,  G  (Prayer-book,  t.  e.  Miles  Coverdalc's  Version). 

X  Psalm  90  :  2  ;  115  :  14. 


ON   DIVINE   ATTRIBUTES.  41 

not  from  Thee ;  but  the   night  shineth  as  the  day ;    the 
darkness  and  light  are  both  alike  to  Thee."''' 

This  is  the  utterance  surely  of  one  who  felt  to  the  fullest 
that  if  he  were  endowed  with  unlimited  powers  of  motion, 
he  could  never  for  a  lonely  instant  escape  from  God ;  that 
God  would  remain  at  the  spot  which  he  had  left,  and  be 
found  at  the  place  which  he  had  reached,  that  the  darkness 
of  the.  midnight  shrouded  not  from  Ilim,  that  the  depths 
of  the  heart  lay  open  to  His  inspection ;  that  no  act  could 
escape  his  observation,  no  wickedness  be  so  stealthy  as  to 
go  undetected  by  Him. 

If  we  pass  from  the  Psalms  to  the  Prophets,  from  David 
to  Isaiah,  though  we  do  not  find  much  advance  in  the  con- 
ception of  the  greatness  of  God,  yet  there  is  a  growing 
clearness  in  the  ideas  concerning  God's  holiness  and  His 
condescension  in  dwelling  witli  the  sinful.  "  The  Holy  One 
of  Israel"  is  (if  the  expression  may  be  allowed)  Isaiah's 
favorite  mode  of  speaking  of  the  Almighty.  We  may  per- 
haps trace  the  cause  of  this  peculiar  mode  of  thought  (as 
we  did  previously  in  the  case  of  Moses)  to  the  vision  which 
was  given  to  him  at  his  call  to  the  prophetic  office. f  The 
Lord  appeared  to  him  on  His  throne;  and  seraphim  stood 
around  crying,  "  Holy,  Holy,  Holy."  AYe  cannot  wonder 
that  the  prophet  stood  confounded,  and  said,  "  Woe  is  me, 
for  I  am  a  man  of  unclean  lips."  It  was  the  manifestation 
of  the  holiness  of  God  which  convinced  Isaiah  of  his  own 
imperfection.  And  the  seraph  took  a  live  coal,  and  touched 
the  lips  whose  uncleanness  he  had  bewailed,  and  pro- 
nounced that  his  sin  was  purged.     Can  we  wonder  that 

*   Psalm  139  :  8-12.      David's  view  of  nature   must   be   regarded 
as  an  artistic  or  emotional,  rather  than  as  a  scientific  one. 
f  Isaiah  6. 

4" 


42  SERMON   I. 

such  a  sight  as  this, — the  radiant  form  of  the  Lord,  throned 
in  fire  and  cloud,  with  angels  chanting  their  song  of 
triumph, — should  leave  a  lasting  impression  on  the  prophet, 
alike  of  God's  holiness  and  of  human  sinfulness  ;  of  God's 
majesty  and  condescension  ?  or  need  we  seek  for  any  other 
epoch  than  this,  when  the  revelation  was  made  to  him, 
which  he  has  expressed  in  our  text,  that  "  the  high  and 
holj  One  who  inhabiteth  eternity,  dwells  with  the  hjimble, 
and  revives  the  spirit  of  the  contrite  ?" 

If  we  leave  the  early  dispensations,  and  pass  on  to  the 
Christian,  we  shall  find  that  the  thoughts  of  men  are  again 
widened.  Christianity  indeed  adds  little  to  our  idea  of  the 
infinity  of  God  ;  but  it  adds  much  to  the  idea  of  His  mercy 
and  condescension.  What  a  palpable  proof,  for  example, 
of  God's  love  is  seen  in  the  fact  of  the  appointment  of  a 
human  mediator  !  If  Christ  had  been  merely  Divine,  if  He 
were  unallied  with  ourselves,  if  He  had  never  taken  our 
nature  nor  experienced  our  trials,  could  we  have  confidence 
in  committing  ourselves  to  Him  ?  If  you  would  encourage 
me  to  carry  my  sorrows  to  such  a  mediator,  you  could  only 
point  to  His  infinite  greatness  and  amazing  power  ;  but  this 
would  merely  increase  my  misgiving  whether  He  would  con- 
descend to  notice  such  an  unworthy  being  as  myself;  for 
in  proportion  as  you  raise  my  conception  of  Him,  you  re- 
move Him  from  all  companionship  with  the  sinful.  But 
when  I  see  the  Word  made  flesh,  it  is  a  pledge  that  what- 
ever is  human  must  come  within  the  sphere  of  His  mercy. 
Watch  those  thirty-three  years  of  His  earthly  life  ;  see  Him 
tasting  deep  of  every  sorrow  ;  sustaining  every  human  re- 
lation ;  bearing  others'  sufferings,  and  carrying  their  trials, 
never  refusing  mercy  to  the  vilest,  healing  the  n-jost  im- 
pure ;  and  remember  that  the  same  being,  though  gone  on 
high,  is  Jesus  still ;  so  that  now,  within  the  very  shrine  of 


ON   DIVINE   ATTRIBUTES.  43 

the  eternal  glory,  there  dwells  one  in  human  form,  with  all 
the  strength  of  human  sympathies,  and  the  remembrance 
of  human  trials,  interceding  for  us ;  infinite  in  power,  be- 
cause God,  unceasing  in  sympathy,  because  man :  and  tell 
me  if  you  do  not  feel  confidence  to  approach  the  mercy- 
seat,  and  cast  your  load  of  sin  before  Him ;  tell  me  if  you 
do  not  now  understand,  with  a  fulness  which  even  Moses 
and  David  and  Isaiah  could  never  realize,  that  He  who  in- 
habiteth  eternity  indeed  dwells  with  the  humble,  and  is 
willing  to  revive  the  heart  of  the  contrite. 

How  marvellously  also  are  we  made  to  feel  the  condescen- 
sion of  God,  by  the  doctrine  that  Christ  has  given  another 
Comforter  to  dwell  in  the  human  heart !  For  though  His 
miraculous  gifts  are  no  longer  the  sensible  proof  of  the 
Spirit's  presence,  yet  his  moral  influences  are  as  real  now 
as  ever.  We  are  not  awed  by  unearthly  spectacles,  nor 
convinced  by  supernatural  evidence  ;  but  wherever  there 
is  a  heart  touched  with  a  sense  of  its  own  sinfulness,  or 
longing  with  anxious  earnestness  to  be  delivered  from  the 
slavery  of  sin,  or  conscious  that  it  has,  indeed,  been  turned 
from  the  love  of  sin  to  the  love  of  God,  there  the  Spirit's 
operation  is  manifested ;  there  His  influences  are  found, 
even  now.  Ask  any  one  who  is  the  blessed  recipient  of 
those  deep  searchings  of  hearts,  and  he  will  respond  in  the 
words  of  the  Prophet :  "  Truly,  the  high  and  lofty  One 
that  inhabiteth  eternity,  whose  name  is  holy,  dwelleth  with 
him  that  is  of  a  humble  and  contrite  spirit." 

3.  We  have  now  completed  our  survey  of  the  information 
w^hich  is  supplied  to  us  in  reference  to  the  Divine  greatness 
and  condescension  by  Reason  and  Revelation.  There  re- 
mains, however,  another  medium  of  communication.  Start- 
ling as  it  may  seem,  we  can  show  that  the  discoveries  of 
modern  Science  have  opened  views  of  the  Divine  greatness 


44  SERMON    I. 

■which  even  add  something  to  that  which  Divine  revehition 
itself  supplies.  In  some  respects,  indeed,  the  discoveries  of 
•science  fall  immeasurably  below  those  of  revelation,  but  in 
other  subjects  not  so.  And  it  is  a  new,  and  I  hope  to  make 
it  appear  an  instructive,  view  of  science,  to  regard  it  as 
a  revelation^  differing  only  from  the  Divine  one  in  being 
communicated  without  supernatural  inspiration,  through 
the  agency  of  human  genius.  In  truth,  the  discoveries 
which  the  human  mind  makes  cannot  be  regarded  as  an 
accident.  Though  they  are  not  direct  gifts  from  the 
Almighty,  yet  a  believer  in  a  moral  governor  must  admit 
them  to  be  part  of  the  scheme  of  Providence.  If  dis- 
coveries merely  related  to  the  material  welfare  of  man,  we 
could  conceive  it  barely  possible  that  they  arose  by  acci- 
dent ;  but  when  we  see  that  they  bear  directly  on  human 
civilization,  and  on  the  advancement  of  that  which  is  eternal 
in  man,  and  seem  marvellously  adapted  to  promote  such 
advancement,  we  might  establish  an  argument  from  final 
causes  in  favor  of  their  occurrence  by  design.  Thus,  for 
example,  when  we  look  back  on  an  event  like  the  Protestant 
Reformation,  we  cannot  think  that  the  AlmightjMvas  indif- 
ferent to  an  act  or  series  of  acts  which  must  ever  stand  out 
as  the  most  glorious  of  all  revolutions,  the  charter  of  the 
intellectual,  social,  and  religious  freedom  of  entire  nations; 
and  when  we  see  how  pre-eminently  the  single  invention  of 
the  art  of  printing  has  contributed  to  diffuse  that  freedom, 
and  to  establish  it  as  the  invaluable  inheritance  of  man,  can 
the  mind  that  believes  in  a  God  of  Providence  doubt  that  such 
coincidences  are  in  the  hands  of  Ilim  in  whom  we  live,  and 
move,  and  have  our  being?  Nor  will  such  an  individual 
read  a  Divine  purpose  in  those  discoveries  only  which  con- 
tribute to  utility;  he  will  perceive  it  in  those  also  which 
have   no  other  use  than   merely  to  enlarge  the  range  of 


ON   DIVINE   ATIBIBUTES.  45 

human  thought.  Accordingly,  in  this  view,  Science  be- 
comes a  kind  of  revehition  from  God,  given  by  natural 
means,  yet  ordered  of  Providence. 

Thus,  for  example,*  what  an  advance  has  been  made 
beyond  even  the  knowledge  which  the  Scripture  writers 
possessed,  in  our  conception  of  the  infinite  greatness  of 
God,  by  the  discoveries  of  modern  astronomy !  If  one  of 
the  ancient  prophets,  who  conceived  this  world  to  be  the 
principal  body  in  the  universe,  and  who  had  no  satisfactory 
view  either  of  the  sky  or  the  bodies  which  moved  in  it, 
could  have  been  taught  those  truths  which  observations  by 
the  telescope  and  the  calculations  of  modern  analysis  have 
been  instrumental  in  establishing,  how  immeasurably  would 
his  conceptions  of  the  Divine  Being  have  been  enlarged, 
and  his  reverence  for  His  greatness  have  been  enhanced ! 
Give  him  to  understand  that  the  earth  is  but  an  inferior 
member  in  a  small  system  of  stars ;  unfold  to  him  the  'plan 
of  that  system  of  which,  viewing  it  from  the  earth,  he  only 
sees  the  section;  then  show  him  that  larger  system  in 
which  our  whole  solar  system  forms  a  mere  speck ;  carry 
on  his  thoughts  still  farther  to  systems  situated  at  such  a 
distance  that  the  glittering  millions  of  the  bodies  which 
compose  them  are  undistinguishable  except  as  a  spot  of 
nebulous  light :  place  before  him  the  extraordinary  fact 
that  the  ray  of  light,  travelling  at  a  velocity  which  baffles 
the  powers  of  imagination,  though  not  of  calculation,  pro- 
bably must  have  left  those  bodies  even  thousands  of  years 
ago  ;  convince  him  further  that  the  chief  part  of  these 
statements  are  not  theory,  but  really  matters  of  measure- 
ment, depending  originally  upon  facts  the  most  obvious, 
and  computations  the  most  simple,  and  would  not  he  be 

*  Compare  Hitchcock's  Geology  and  Religion  (Lect.  13). 


46  SERMON    I. 

prepared  to  admit  that  God  has,  indeed,  unfolded  to  these 
later  ages  of  the  world  conceptions  of  His  own  infinity  and 
majesty,  which  prophets  of  old  waited  for  and  sought,  but 
never  found  ? 

Nor  is  it  only  by  means  of  the  infinite  in  greatness,  but 
also  by  the  infinite  in  smallness,  that  we  learn  the  nature 
of  God ;  for  as  the  telescope  has  revealed  to  us  the  one,  so 
the  microscope  has  laid  bare  the  other.  Each  has  enlarged 
human  power  so  as  to  confer  on  it  (we  might  almost  say)  a 
new  sense.  When  we  find  a  world  of  minute  life  discovered 
to  us,  unperceived  by  our  unassisted  senses, — nay,  when 
we  find  that  with  every  successive  increase  in  the  power  of 
the  instrument,  a  world  of  still  more  and  more  minute  life 
is  laid  bare,  so  as  to  seem  to  have  no  limit  to  its  immea- 
surable minuteness,  just  as  in  the  other  direction  the  series 
of  worlds  seems  to  reach  to  infinity  in  their  immeasurable 
remoteness ;  when  we  find  these  minute  beings  wondrous 
in  structure,  and  surrounded  abundantly  by  all  that  is 
adapted  to  their  wants,  we  see  that  the  vastness  of  God's 
care  reaches  to  the  fleeting  and  insignificant  unit  of  an 
insignificant  race ;  the  very  atom  is  not  overlooked ;  and 
we  begin  to  understand  in  a  deeper  sense  what  is  meant  by 
the  declaration  that  God  is  *'  the  high  and  lofty  One,  that 
inhabiteth  eternity." 

If  w^e  pass  from  these  sciences,  others  meet  u^  wdnch 
teach  the  same  doctrine.  For  as  Astronomy  has  stretched 
our  conceptions  to  apprehend  the  extent  of  the  physical 
universe  in  space,  so  docs  Geology  expand  them  in  relation 
to  our  ideas  of  time.  It  used  to  be  considered  that,  about 
six  thousand  years  ago,  the  earth  and  the  whole  material 
universe  Avere  spoken  into  existence  in  a  moment  of  time. 
We  now  understand  that  the  Scripture  account,  which  was 
supposed  to  imply  this,  can  only  relate  to  the  preparation 


ON   DIVINE   ATTRIBUTES.  47 

of  this  earth  for  the  habitation  of  man,  not  to  its  original 
creation.  For  science  has  proved,  by  irrefragable  evi- 
dence,* that  the  first  act  of  creation  must  be  referred  to  a 
period  indefinitely  but  immensely  remote ;  and  that  succes- 
sive ages  have  passed  over  tbis  globe,  during  which  it  has 
been  the  seat  of  numerous  systems  of  organic  life,  differing 
from  one  another,  yet  all  linked  into  a  great  system  by  a 
most  perfect  unity.  The  revolution  of  thought,  which  re- 
duced the  world  to  its  true  position  in  the  universe  of  space, 
did  not  more  immeasurably  enlarge  our  ideas  of  the  Divine 
Beins  than  this  has,  which  has  reduced  the  era  of  human 
history  to  its  true  position  in  the  immensity  of  time. 

And  as  Astronomy  has  revealed  to  us  the  infinity  of  the 
2:)resent  creation,  and  Geology  the  vastness  of  the  past,  so 
has  the  science  of  Mathematics  laid  open  to  our  view  the 
infinite  wisdom  which  has  provided  for  the  future.  If  any 
branch  of  knowledge  appeared  eminently  unlikely  to  unfold 
to  us  any  information  about  God,  you  would  think  it  would 
be  that  system  of  symbolic  formulae  and  abstract  notions, 
which  seems  to  stand  in  utter  isolation  alike  from  nature 
and  from  man.  And  yet  when  we  apply  it  to  predict  the 
attractions  of  the  heavenly  bodies  in  periods  yet  to  come, 
it  unfolds  to  us  some  results  of  extraordinary  grandeur. 
When  we  trace  the  effects  of  the  mutual  disturbances  of  the 
planets,  we  seem  to  approach  a  mighty  catastrophe,  which 
their  mutual  action  will  at  some  time  bring  about ;  yet  as 
we  pursue  our  calculations  we  arrive  at  a  few  unassuming 
formulae,  which,  interpreted  by  reason,  reveal  to  us  the 
infinite  wisdom  of  God ;  for  we  find  that  not  only  vast 
cycles  of  time  are  established  in  which  these  disturbances, 
when  verging  on   the   catastrophe  which  we  dread,  shall 

*  See  a  note  appended  to  Sermon  III  of  this  volume. 


48  SERMON   I. 

befrin  to  be  reversed  in  their  effect,  and  thus  restore  the 
whole  solar  system  to  the  position  Avhich  it  originally  occu- 
pied;  but  also  that,  by  an  exquisitely-contrived  plan  of 
compensation,  the  stability  of  all  those  elements  which  are 
essential  to  the  safety  of  the  system  is  permanently  guaran- 
teed.* Who  can  contemplate  these  amazing  results,  which 
manifest  the  infinite  contrivance  of  the  Almighty  Architect, 
without  a  feeling  of  devout  thankfulness  that  we  have  been 
permitted  thus  to  discover  traces  of  the  high  and  lofty  One 
who  inhabiteth  eternity ! 

The  illustrations  which  have  hitherto  been  given  show 
how  Physical  Science  has  revealed  the  infinity  of  God ;  we 
might  add,  also,  that  Mental  Science  has  equally  revealed 
His  attribute  of  holiness.  For  as  we  study  the  microcosm, 
man,  we  remark  the  existence  of  a  faculty  there,  acting  as 
God's  vicegerent,  imperatively  forbidding  sin  ;  and  as  we 
study  man  in  the  larger  relations  of  society,  we  observe 
that  a  system  of  pleasure  and  pains  has  been  annexed  to 
virtue  and  vice,  of  such  a  character  that  virtue  is  made  its 
own  reward,  and  vice  its  own  punishment. f  So  that  if  we 
before  learned  to  understand  that  God  was  high  and  lofty, 
and  that  He  inhabiteth  eternity,  we  now  are  taught  that 
*'  His  name  is  holy." 

These  remarks  must  suffice  in  proof  of  the  assertion  that 
Science  has  opened  to  us  some  views  of  the  Divine  Being 


*  Tlie  allusion  is  to  Lagrange's  theorems  on  the  stability  of  the 
inclinations  of  the  planetary  orbits,  the  conservation  of  the  mean  dis- 
tances and  periods,  and  the  stability  of  the  eccentricities.  They  are 
stated  in  most  works  on  the  planetary  theory ;  e.  (j.  in  Airy's  Mathe- 
matical Tracts,  or  Pratt's  Mechanical  Philosophy.  Sir  J,  Herschel  has 
attempted  to  give  a  popular  explanation  of  them  in  his  work  on  Astro- 
nomy (part  ii.  ch.  12,  13). 

t  Compare  Chalmers's  Brldgewatcr  Treatise  (ch.  1-3). 


ON   DIVINE   ATTRIBUTES.  49 

■which  even  surpass  those  which  are  furnished  bj  Scripture 
itself.  It  will,  however,  moderate  the  pride  with  which  we 
might  be  in  danger  of  regarding  Science,  if  we  remark  the 
deficiencies  of  it  as  a  revelation  in  certain  other  respects. 
It  reveals  to  us  Him  who  inhabiteth  eternity,  but  it  tells  us 
nothing  of  His  willingness  to  dwell  with  the  humble ;  it 
reveals  to  us  general  laws,  it  cannot  teach  a  special  Provi- 
dence; it  may  show  us  man's  misery  and  his  need  of  peni- 
tence, but  it  is  the  Bible  alone  which  can  tell  us  that  the 
Infinite  is  approachable  by  prayer,  and  willing  to  revive 
the  heart  of  the  contrite. 

We  have  now  traced  through  the  world's  history  the  suc- 
cessive discoveries  which  Reason,  Revelation,  and  Science 
have  made  concerning  the  greatness  and  condescension  of 
God.  It  only  remains,  in  conclusion,  to  draw  from  the 
subject  very  briefly  some  practical  instruction  on  the 
motives  and  means  of  religious  living,  which  may  tend  to 
advance  us  a  step  in  the  path  toward  that  world  where  the 
infinite  God  shall  no  longer  be  comprehended  imperfectly 
by  laborious  processes  of  inference,  but  in  the  simple  power 
of  an  undiramed  intuition  shall  be  known  face  to  face,  and 
be  seen  as  He  is. 

If  it  be  indeed  a  fact  that  the  high  and  lofty  One  that 
inhabiteth  eternity  is  willing  to  dwell  with  man,  what 
appeals  it  ought  to  make  both  to  our  fears  and  our  hopes ! 
The  thought  ought  to  warn  us  that  nothing  can  escape  His 
observation,  that  all  our  sins  lie  open  to  His  searching  gaze, 
and  are  registered  in  the  book  of  His  undying  memory; 
and  if  He  be  represented  to  us  as  caring  so  much  for  man 
that  He  has  set  His  heart  upon  him,  what  can  we  expect  if 
we  slight  the  salvation  which  He  proff'ers  us  but  the  ven- 
geance of  His  overwhelming  greatness  ? 

On  the  other  hand,  what  a  blessed  hope  it  furnishes  to 


50  SERMON    I. 

each  one  of  us  !  The  infinite  God  is  willing  to  become  our 
friend,  and  to  make  our  hearts  His  dwelling-place.  What 
privilege  can  be  so  exalted  as  this  ?  We  see  some  men 
moved  by  an  honorable  ambition  covet  the  prize  of  worldly 
praise,  or  the  friendship  of  the  great  of  the  earth  ;  and 
others  withdraw  themselves  from  the  hurry  of  .society  to 
commune  with  the  minds  of  former  generations,  as  they 
meditate  on  the  works  which  hand  down  to  us  their  thoughts. 
But  how  immeasurably  nobler  is  the  privilege  of  entering 
into  communion  with  Him  that  inhabiteth  eternity  !  how 
much  more  exalted  an  employment  to  retire  to  seek  of  Him 
to  send  his  Spirit  to  dwell  within  our  hearts ! 

The  method  whereby  this  privilege  is  open  to  us  is  plain. 
He  dwelleth  with  him  that  is  of  a  contrite  and  humble 
spirit.  The  one  requisite  for  its  attainment  is  that  we 
really  feel  our  own  sinfulness,  and  ask  for  His  presence. 
Therefore,  if  there  be  one  of  us  more  conscious  than  his 
fellows  of  his  own  exceeding  great  needs,  and  well-nigh 
desponding  that  so  high  a  privilege  can  be  for  him,  he  may 
take  comfort  that  the  Almighty  does  not  seek  for  worthi- 
ness in  us, — He  only  asks  for  willingness  ;  that  He  will  be 
found  of  all  who  approach  Him  in  earnest  penitent  prayer, 
for  He  will  revive  the  spirit  of  the  humble,  and  the  heart 
of  the  contrite  ones.  How  great  a  means  also  of  realizing 
His  nearness  should  we  find  it,  if  we  were  to  bear  before 
us  the  thought  of  His  greatness  and  omnipresence  !  What 
a  reality  Avould  it  throw  into  our  prayers,  either  in  public 
worship  or  in  private,  if  we  forced  upon  ourselves,  as  we 
bow  the  knee  in  supplication,  the  thought  of  Him  whose 
presence  we  are  invoking !  How  would  it  hallow  our  lives 
if  we  possessed  within  us,  amid  the  pressure  of  business  or 
the  whirl  of  fashion,  the  vision  of  the  infinite  God;  if  we 
remembered  that  no  fretting  cares,  no  innocent  excitement, 


ON   DIVINE   ATTRIBUTES.  51 

need  shut  us  out  from  His  presence ;  nay,  that  from  amid 
the  hurry  of  the  multitude  and  the  tumults  of  life  there  is 
a  hearing  for  every  humble  heart  in  the  heavenly  temple ; 
that  the  unuttered  breathings  of  the  most  secret  wants  of 
every  contrite  spirit  are  seen,  and  known,  and  heard,  and 
answered  afar  off,  in  that  place  where  the  Babel  tumult  of 
earth  is  hushed,  and  the  stillness  of  the  sacred  presence  is 
unbroken  save  by  the  seraph  chant  of  "  Holy,  Holy, 
Holy,"  or  by  the  chorus  of  reverent  praises,  which  rises 
from  the  ten  thousand  times  ten  thousand  of  the  redeemed 
spirits  of  the  just  made  perfect ! 

It  is  indeed  a  joyful  thought  that  God  so  inhabiteth 
eternity,  that  travel  where  I  may  in  unlimited  space,  I  can 
never  reach  the  lonely  spot  where  He  is  not  present  as  my 
guardian,  never  find  the  solitary  scene  where  He  is  not  as 
watchful  over  me  as  if  the  universe  were  a  void,  and  myself 
its  sole  inhabitant;  and,  therefore,  I  know  that  though  I 
may  live  among  the  humblest,  I  am  as  much  observed  of 
Him  as  a  monarch  on  his  throne ;  that  when  I  go  to  my 
daily  toil,  or  say  my  daily  prayer,  when  I  lie  down  or  rise 
up,  I  am  cared  for  of  Him ;  so  that  I  cannot  weep  the  tear 
which  He  sees  not,  nor  feel  the  pang  which  he  notes  not, 
nor  breath  the  prayer  which  He  hears  not. 


NOTE, 

On  the  Theological  Ideas  of  some  early  Greek  Philosophers. 


of  it  has  been  subsequently  led  to  alter  his  views  in  reference  to  the 
tenets  which  some  of  the  old  Greek  philosophers,  named  in  it,  enter- 
tained on  the  subject  of  Deity.     He  thinks  that  he  had  attributed  to 


62  SERMON   I. 

them  more  than  they  consciously  knew.  He  had  made  them  think  on 
theological  subjects  in  too  modem  a  spirit.  It  is  important  to  remem- 
ber that  the  study  of  those  early  thinkers  is  like  the  study  of  a  fossil 
world.  The  same  words  which  we  now  use  were  used  by  them,  but 
with  wholly  different  meanings.  The  difficulty  is  really  not  to  find 
dissimilarities  between  them  and  ourselves,  but  rather  to  find  points  of 
agreement. 

The  points,  accordingly,  in  which  the  preceding  Sermon  appears  to 
exceed  the  limits  of  fact  are  : — 

1st.  In  attributing  to  Thales,  on  the  strength  of  Plato's  remark  in 
the  "  Philebus,"  conscious  attempts  to  speculate  on  theology ;  whereas 
his  speculations  partook  rather  merely  of  the  character  of  ontology  or 
cosmogony,  and  can  only  be  regarded  at  relating  to  theology  in  the 
single  point  where  he  touched  on  the  idea  of  power  or  efficient  cause, 
and  identified  it  with  the  material  cause,  making  both  reside  in  "Water, 
thus  attributing  a  kind  of  soul  to  Nature. 

2d.  In  making  the  Nooc  of  Anaxagoras's  system  to  be  a  personal  intel- 
ligence, whereas  it  was  probaljly  hardly  more  than  the  idea  of  order  or 
law,  presiding  over  nature,  in  contradistinction  to  Heracleitus's  view  of 
constant  flux  in  phenomena. 

8d.  In  making  Plato  to  have  regarded  Deity  as  a  person,  and  in- 
terpreting the  term  d^aflo?  in  his  description  to  refer  to  moral  qualities. 
His  God  was  rather  the  mere  principle  of  Divinity,  and  the  goodness 
of  his  Deity  was  only  order  or  liarmony.  The  supreme  if^k  seems  to 
have  been  at  once  the  supreme  type  of  goodness  and  the  supreme 
formal  cause,  God.  So  that  the  'itTsat,  arising  first  in  Plato's  mind  as 
a  mode  of  accounting  for  reminiscence  (as  in  the  "Meno")  ;  then  be- 
coming a  mode  in  controversy  for  refuting  scepticism  (as  in  the  Theffi- 
tetus) ;  next,  regarded  as  having  a  real  existence  in  nature  and  in 
knowledge  (as  in  the  ''Republic"),  analogous  to  our  "law  of  nature"  or 
our  "hypothesis;"  lastly  (in  the  "Philebus"),  came  to  be  regarded  as 
the  supreme  cause,  the  most  abstract  harmony,  the  God.  The  whole 
account  of  the  Deity  in  the  "  Republic"  (b.  ii)  is  explicable  on  this 
hypothesis. 

Thus  all  philosophical  theology  in  Greece  was  Pantheistic,  i.  e.  if 
Pantheism  be  made  to  mean  any  theory  which  admits  an  impersonal 
first  cause,  and  to  include,  (1st.)  The  theory  which  teaches  an  anima 
mundi ;  (2d.)  That  which  regards  God  as  the  sum  total  of  all  that  ex- 
ists   (Pantheism  proper) ;  and   (3d.)   That  which  regards  Deity  as  an 


ON   DIVINE    ATTRIBUTES.  53 

abstraction,  synonymous  with  the  idea  of  perfection.  Thales  might 
possibly  represent  the  first  of  these  views  ;  the  Eleatics  the  second  ; 
Anaxagoras,  Plato,  and  Aristotle,  the  thh-d. 

(pp.  34-42.)  It  will  be  observed  that  no  reference  is  made  in  this 
Sermon  to  the  modern  German  discussion  concerning  the  authorship, 
integrity,  and  date  of  the  books  of  the  Hebrew  Canon  here  quoted. 
Such  criticisms  were  partly  unknown  to  the  writer  at  the  time  when  the 
Sermon  was  composed  (1855)  ;  but  they  do  not  so  much  affect  the 
question  here  discussed  concerning  the  conceptions  to  which  the  Jews 
attained  about  God  as  the  respective  dates  at  which  those  conceptions 
became  known.  The  view  taken  in  the  Sermon,  being  the  one  preva- 
lent in  England,  supposes  the  general  integrity  of  the  Masoretic  Canon, 
and  assumes  also  that  the  different  conceptions  of  Deity,  commonly 
called  the  Elohistic  and  Jehovistic,  related  more  to  difference  of  thought 
than  of  time,  not  being  so  much  restricted  to  particular  epochs  of  Jew- 
ish literature,  but  rather  marking  respectively  different  aspects  of  be- 
lief, the  priestly  and  the  prophetic,  the  ethnic  and  the  revealed.  (The 
reference,  however,  in  p.  41,  of  the  authorship  of  the  139th  Psalm  to 
David  on  the  strength  of  its  title  is  most  probably  erroneous,  on  account 
of  the  Aramaisms  which  it  contains.)  This  interesting  subject  of  the 
Jewish  names  for  Deity  may  be  studied  in  Hengstenberg's  ''Authentic 
des  Pentateuches"  (vol.  i) ;  De  Wette's  "  Introduction  to  the  Old 
Testament"  (Eng.  Trans.,  Part  III,  B.  1,  ch.  1);  Keil's  "  Lehrbuch" 
(p.  82)  ;  and  Donaldson's  "Christian  Orthodoxy"  (Appendix  III). 


SERMON    11. 

DIVINE    PROVIDENCE    IN    GENERAL    LAWS. 

(PREACHED  BEFORE  THE  UNIVERSITY,  DECEMBER  13,  ISSt.) 


ACTS    17:28. 
"In  Him  IOC  liv%  and  move,  and  have  our  being.'''' 

St.  Paul's  visit  to  Athens,  on  -which  occasion  the  speech 
was  uttered  of  which  these  words  form  a  part,  is  one  of  the 
most  interesting  passages  of  apostolic  adventure  which 
Scripture  history  has  preserved  to  us.  If  St.  Luke  had 
merely  informed  us  that  the  Apostle,  in  the  course  of  his 
missionary  travels,  visited  the  two  great  centres  of  ancient 
power  and  civilization,  Athens  and  Rome,  but  had  omitted 
to  record  his  acts  and  speeches  under  those  circumstances, 
we  should  have  been  probably  more  disappointed  by  the 
omission  of  such  a  narrative  than  by  that  of  any  other 
portion  of  his  eventful  life.  We  should  have  wished  to 
know  how  St.  Paul  felt  on  those  occasions  as  a  man,  and 
how  he  acted  as  an  Apostle.  We  could  even  be  content 
to  have  lost  the  narrative  of  his  visit  to  Rome,  rather  than 
that  of  his  speech  at  Athens  ;  for  when  we  had  heard  that 
Rome  was  visited  by  him  when  a  prisoner,  we  might  be 
certain  that  this  circumstance  would  interfere  with  his  free- 


ON    GENERAL   LAWS.  55 

dom  of  action,  and  with  the  expression  of  his  missionary 
sympathy.  But  we  should  have  earnestly  coveted  to  know 
what  the  Apostle  did  and  said  in  bringing  Christianity  for 
the  first  time  into  contact  with  the  religion  and  philosophy 
of  Greece.  And,  therefore,  we  must  set  a  special  value 
upon  the  precise  narrative  which  St.  Luke  has  left  us, 
which,  in  thrilling  interest,  equals  all  that  we  could  have 
anticipated. 

The  Apostle  visited  Athens  in  circumstances  which  (as 
we  have  already  hinted)  were  wholly  unlike  those  which 
characterized  his  visit  to  Rome.  He  entered  Athens  as  a 
freeman,  happy  in  the  joyful  recollection  of  escape  from 
recent  perils  in  Northern  Greece.  He  was  unattended  by 
companions.  He  wandered  alone  through  the  city,  undis- 
turbed in  his  examination  of  it.  And  then,  after  his  day's 
wanderings,  he  is  described  as  betaking  himself  to  the 
Agora,  and  breaking  out  into  a  public  address  to  the 
gathered  crowd.  It  is  Paul  the  traveller  no  longer ;  it  is 
Paul  the  Apostle.  The  thoughts,  struggling  like  a  pent-up 
fire,  now  express  themselves  in  words.  It  is  Paul  trying 
to  do  his  Lord's  work  in  the  centre  of  the  world's  civiliza- 
tion. It  is  a  Christian  Apostle,  iind  that  Apostle  Paul, 
bringing  Christianity  into  contact  with  Greek  religion  and 
Greek  philosophy,  in  a  city  hallowed  by  historical  associa- 
tions, a  sanctuary  of  art,  a  centre,  even  in  its  fall,  of  intel- 
lectual glory. 

No  scene  can  be  more  interesting.  Yet  we  are  apt  to 
allow  our  recollections  of  an  earlier  age  of  Athenian  his- 
tory to  interfere  with  a  vivid  realization  of  the  scene  and 
the  audience  which  presented  themselves  to  St.  Paul.  We 
are  accustomed  to  think  of  Athens  only  as  she  was  in  the 
zenith  of  her  power  ;  when,  flushed  with  the  victory  of 
freedom,   and  guided  by  the   consummate   ability  of  her 


56  SERMON   II. 

Statesmen,  she  raised  herself  to  the  head  of  a  vast  colonial 
empire ;  Avhen  her  foreign  power  was  but  the  parallel  to 
that  more  enduring  intellectual  empire  which  existed  at 
home, — the  empire  of  art,  of  thought,  of  liberty.  But 
when  St.  Paul  visited  Athens,  nearly  five  hundred  years 
had  passed  since  the  noonday  of  Athenian  glory.  Her 
empire  had  been  destroyed ;  her  commerce  had  disap- 
peared ;  her  harbors  were  already  beginning  to  be  choked 
with  sand ;  and  her  territory  had  been  absorbed  in  that  of 
the  power  w^hich  had  converted  the  Mediterranean  into  a 
Roman  lake,  from  which,  as  from  a  centre,  succeedino- 
waves  of  conquest  were  overflowing  the  earth.  The  rays 
of  intellectual  glory  still,  however,  lingered  round  the 
setting  splendor  of  Athens  ;  and  the  young  nobility  of 
Rome  came  to  reside  there  as  in  a  sort  of  University.  It 
was  with  some  of  these  persons,  men  of  speculative  habits 
of  thought,  that  St.  Paul  was  now  brought  into  contact. 
His  audience  consisted  not  only  of  the  persons  who  in  the 
evening  might  be  reposing  under  the  plane-trees  of  the 
Agora,  but  embraced  also  certain  students  of  the  Stoic  and 
Epicurean  creeds.  St.  Paul  knew  this,  and  we  may  ob- 
serve a  wonderful  adaptation  to  the  tastes  or  the  errors  of 
each  sect  in  the  discourse  of  which  his  historian  has  pre- 
sented the  substance.'*'  The  Apostle  was  taken  up  to 
Mars'  Hill ;  and,  standing  on  those  rock-hewn  steps  which 


"  Some  critics  have  supposed  that  St.  Luke  lias  here  put  iuto  St. 
Paul's  mouth  a  speech  such  as  he  was  likely  to  have  delivered,  accord- 
ing to  the  dramatic  method  so  common  in  the  historians  of  that  time. 
The  supposition  has  arisen  from  the  improbability  that  the  logical  mind 
of  the  Apostle  Paul  would  be  susceptible  to  the  influences  of  poetrj-, 
and  scenery,  and  other  circumstances,  of  which  the  speech  exhibits 
traces.  There  seems,  however,  equal  internal  probability  against  such 
a  supposition. 


ON    GENERAL    LAWS.  57 

formed  then,  as  now,  the  only  approach  to  the  hill,  he 
spoke  with  somewhat  perhaps  of  the  air  of  dignity  which 
the  great  master  has  expressed  in  his  cartoon.*  The 
scene  was  one  of  the  most  striking,  the  most  poetical  in 
history.  His  very  opening  words  seemed  to  convey  the 
impression  which  the  sight  of  the  city  had  made  upon  his 
mind,  and  with  consummate  tact  he  seized  on  a  familiar 
illustration.  "  Men  of  Athens,"  he  said,  "  all  things  which 
I  behold  bear  witness  to  your  carefulness  in  religion. f  For 
as  I  was  passing  through  your  city,  and  beholding  the 
objects  of  your  worship,  I  found  amongst  them  an  altar  to 
the  unknown  God.  This  is  the  God  whom  I  declare  unto 
you." 

It  is  surely  no  idle  fancy  to  suppose  that  the  words  which 
follow  may  suggest  to  us  the  belief  that  the  eye  of  the 
Apostle  at  that  moment  glanced  from  the  eminence  on 
which  he  stood  to  the  citadel  which  rose  in  queen-like 
stateliness  before  him,  covered  with  those  many  temples 
sparkling  at  that  time  in  crystalline  whiteness,  the  remains 
of  which  still  attract  the  traveller  to  gaze  on  their  majestic 
outlines,  beautiful  even  in  their  ruins ;  and  from  that  exhi- 
bition of  industry  and  wealth,  devoted  to  the  service  of  the 
Greek  religion,  the  Apostle's  eye  may  have  glanced  away 

*  It  is  not  implied  by  these  words  tliat  the  Apostle's  figure,  marred 
by  his  "  thorn  in  the  flesh,"  can  have  been  so  noble  as  the  ideal  which 
Raffaelle  (copying  Masaccio)  has  presented ;  but  it  may  be  reasonably 
presumed  that  his  moral  dignity  and  bearing  have  not  been  inaptly 
depicted  in  that  master's  cartoon.  4 

t  It  is  generally  known  that  the  words  used  by  St.  Paul  (wf  ^Kjidai- 
liovetTTcpovs)  were  intended  as  a  compliment,  and  not  as  a  reproach,  as 
the  English  translators  have  made  them  mean,  in  mistranslating  them 
by  the  words  "  too  superstitious."  The  paraphrase  of  St.  Paul's  speech 
here  given  is  borrowed  from  the  work  on  St.  Paul's  life  and  epistles  by 
Conybeare  and  Howson  (i,  401). 


58  SERMON   II. 

again,  as  if  by  contrast,  to  the  works  of  Nature  ;  to  the 
beautiful  plain,  bounded  by  its  marble  mountains  on  the 
one  side,  and  to  the  sea  and  distant  coast,  which  formed 
the  girdle  of  the  horizon,  on  the  other.  And  it  may  have 
been  under  the  impression  of  these  feelings  that  the  Apostle 
continued :  "  God,  who  made  the  world,  and  all  things  in 
it,  seeing  that  He  is  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  dwelleth 
not  in  temples  made  with  hands"  (such  as  then  were  rising 
in  majesty  before  him) ;  "  neither  is  He  served  by  the 
hands  of  men,  as  though  he  needed  anything,  for  it  is  He 
that  giveth  unto  all  life  and  breath,  and  all  things.  And 
He  made  of  one  blood  all  the  nations  of  mankind  to  dwell 
upon  the  face  of  the  whole  earth,  and  ordained  to  each  the 
appointed  seasons  of  their  existence,  and  the  bounds  of 
their  habitation ;  that  they  should  seek  God,  if  haply  they 
might  feel  after  Him,  and  find  Him,  though  He  be  not  far 
from  every  one  of  us  :  for  in  Him  we  live,  and  move,  and 
have  our  being ;  as  certain  of  your  own  poets  have  said, 
^For  we  are  also  His  offspring.'  If,  then,  we  are  the  off- 
spring of  God,  we  ought  not  to  think  that  the  Godhead  is 
like  unto  gold,  or  silver,  or  stone,  graven  by  the  art  and 
device  of  man."  And  then  the  Apostle  proceeded  to  preach 
to  that  frivolous  crowd,  with  intensest  earnestness,  a  judg- 
ment to  come,  and  the  future  life. 

We  need  pursue  the  subject  no  further.  The  narrative 
must  have  an  enduring  interest,  not  only  as  one  of  the  few 
discourses  in  which  an  Apostle  has  shown  a  susceptibility 
to  thf  influences  of  scenery,  but  ctill  more  as  a  specimen 
of  the  mode  in  which  Christianity  was  presented  for  recep- 
tion to  a  heathen,  an  educated,  a  philosophical  audience. 

Those  two  schools  of  Stoics  and  Epicureans,  before  whom 
St.  Paul  spoke,  divided  at  that  period  the  sympathies  and 
the  belief  of  thinking  men.     Speculation  into  the  deeper 


ON    GENERAL   LAWS.  59 

m3^steries  of  existence  and  the  problem  of  the  universe  had 
long  since  disappeared.*  Experience  had  convinced  man- 
kind of  the  futility  of  those  attempts  which  speculative 
philosophy  had  made  to  solve  such  problems  ;  and  the  at- 
tempt had  been  laid  aside,  to  be  again  and  again  resumed 
in  after  ages,  with  the  same  ill  success.  Men  had  accord- 
ingly begun  to  feel  that  the  business  of  man  was  not  to 
speculate,  but  to  act :  and  so  they  were  divided  into  two 
classes;  the  one  of  whichf  comprised  those  who  bore  lightly 
the  sight  of  woe,  and  passed  life  in  an  elegant  selfishness ; 
the  other,!  those  who,  with  haughty  self-respect,  yet  in  the 
main  with  a  serious  view  of  life,  acted  upon  convictions  of 
duty,  of  the  origin  and  of  the  future  reward  of  which  they 
were  ignorant.  Yet  whatever  may  have  been  the  excel- 
lence of  either  system,  both  alike  were  godless ;  both  were 

■^  The  Epicurean  and  Stoic  philosophies  included  indeed  specula- 
tions into  Physics,  as  well  as  Logic  and  Ethics ;  but  the  inquiries  were 
not  only  subordinate,  but  were  conducted  without  the  ontological  specu- 
lations which  had  belonged  to  the  philosophies  of  the  Eleatics,  of  Plato, 
and  of  Aristotle.  It  is  to  the  Stoics  that  we  mainly  owe  the  psycholo- 
gical character  which  has  always  since  marked  ethical  investigations. 
The  Stoic  ethics  are  in  tone  modern ;  all  previous  philosophies  are  like 
the  fossil  remains  of  an  extinct  creation.  The  best  account  of  the 
Stoic  school  is  to  be  found  in  an  essay  by  Sir  Alexander  Grant,  in  the 
Oxford  Essays  for  1858.  It  is  probably  to  the  influence  of  the  Stoic 
philosophy,  impressed  on  Greek  thought  and  on  the  Greek  language, 
which  St.  Paul  consciously  or  unconsciously  received  in  his  youth  at 
the  schools  of  Tarsus,  that  we  must  attribute  the  internal,  the  psycho- 
logical aspect  of  sin,  which  that  Apostle  presents  in  the  Tth  of  Romans 
and  elsewhere.  Sin  is  not,  in  his  view,  merely  transgression  against 
Heaven  5  it  is  internal,  moral  disorganization.  Such  a  view  does  not 
lower  the  Apostle's  inspiration.  The  anointing  Spirit  did  not  obliterate 
peculiarities  of  knowledge  or  of  mind  in  the  individuals  whom  He 
inspired,  but  condescended  to  consecrate  their  various  gifts. 

J  The  Epicureans.  X  The  Stoics. 


GO  SERMON  ir. 

schemes  of  life  ^Yhich  shut  out  the  world  invisible,  and 
were  constructed  in  disbelief  of  a  personal  Providence.  To 
each  of  these  classes  St.  Paul  addressed  his  discourse.  In 
the  lofty  and  serene  Deity,  who  disdained  to  dwell  in  the 
earthly  temple,  the  Epicurean  would  find  echoed  his  own 
belief;  and  in  the  idea  of  an  orderly  system,  the  Stoic 
would  recognize  his  own  hypothesis  of  Fate.  But  St.  Paul 
led  them  beyond  these  notions.  He  at  once  demolished 
the  Atomic  theory  of  the  one,  by  teaching  that  God  was 
the  sustaining  power  in  nature ;  and  the  Pantheistic  fatal- 
ism of  the  other,  by  the  idea  of  the  providence  of  a  per- 
sonal God.  He  taught  to  both  that  God  was  very  nigh, 
that  He  was  observant  of  every  man,  and  would  exact  a 
personal  account ;  that  it  was  their  privilege  to  feel  after 
and  find  Him ;  that  their  dark  and  troubled  spirits  might 
break  into  the  light  of  His  reconciled  countenance. 

It  is  to  the  theory  of  Providence  that  I  wish  now  to 
direct  your  attention.  The  disbelief  in  a  personal  Provi- 
dence of  those  two  old  Greek  schools  is  not  peculiar  to 
their  time.  The  atheism  of  the  Epicurean,  the  fatalism  of 
the  Stoic,  have  often  been  reproduced  in  the  history  of 
thought  in  succeeding  ages  of  the  world.  Each  period  has 
its  own  discoveries;  each  great  thinker  strikes  out  his  own 
line  of  investigation.  And  new  discoveries  or  new  lines  of 
thought  have  to  be  adjusted  with  existing  belief,  or  existing 
belief  surrendered  to  them.  Hence  it  is  that,  in  several 
ages  of  Christian  history,  the  progress  of  investigation  has 
tinged  men's  views  on  Providence.  Occasionally  it  has 
been  some  metaphysician,  who,  gazing  into  the  mysteries 
of  existence,  and  striving  with  his  limited  faculties  to  tran- 
scend the  heights  and  depths  of  the  infinite  Mind,  has 
figured  to  himself  the  universe  as  one  magnificent  whole  of 
causes  and  effects,  moving  on  from  everlasting  to  everlast- 


ON   GENERAL    LAWS.       •  61 

ing  by  laws  once  impressed  upon  it,  with  a  God  perhaps  to 
create,  but  no  God  to  superintend.*  Or  else  it  has  been 
one  who  has  imagined  to  himself  the  universe  as  one  infinite 
substance,  ever  in  a  state  of  evolution  and  development;  an 
ocean  on  whose  bosom  phenomena  arise,  like  so  many  bub- 
bles which  appear  but  for  a  moment ;  a  volcano  ejecting 
its  contents  into  the  air,  only  to  receive  them  back  again 
into  the  unknown  depths  of  its  own  capacious  crater. 

Nor  is  it  merely  from  speculations  into  Mental  pheno- 
mena that  an  unchristian  view  of  Providence  has  sometimes 
been  developed ;  but  the  same  thing  has  resulted  from 
those  real  discoveries  which  have  been  made  by  the  sciences 
which  investigate  Matter  and  Nature. f  Such  a  view  is  far 
more  difficult  of  refutation,  and  is  more  captivating  than 
that  to  which  allusion  has  just  been  made,  in  proportion  as 
it  is  founded  on  truths  which  are  indisputable,  because 
admitting  of  verification.  For  among  the  great  and  mar- 
vellous discoveries  which  Science  has  made  is  the  fact, 
that  each  region  of  phenomena  seems  to  be  directed  by  an 

■^  The  preceding  sentence  would  describe  the  Deistical  view  of  the 
last  century  in  England  and  France.  That  which  immediately  follows 
alludes  to  Spinoza,  and  also  in  part  to  the  modern  schools  of  Schelling 
and  Hegel.  Spinoza  reached  Pantheism  from  the  investigation  of  the 
infinite  in  space,  while  Schelling  and  Hegel  rather  arrived  at  from  the 
infinite  in  time.  His  God  was  in  a  sabbath  of  perpetual  rest ;  theirs  in 
progress  and  development.  Accordingly,  the  words  "  infinite  sub- 
stance" in  the  text,  together  with  the  two  illustrations  of  "the  ocean" 
and  "the  volcano,"  describe  Spinoza's  view;  the  words  "evolution  and 
development"  apply  rather  to  that  of  the  two  philosophers  who  have 
just  been  compared  with  him. 

f  The  reference  here  intended  is  partly  to  Comte  and  the  Positivists, 
and  partly  to  the  Deistical  thinkers  of  the  last  century,  so  far  as  their 
views  originated  in  pliysical  science,  as  distinguishable  from  the  mda- 
jyJiysical  source  of  them  to  which  alkision  has  already  been  made. 

6 


62  SERMON  ir. 

invariable  law  of  antecedent  and  consequent, — cause  and 
effect.  The  astronomer  is  able  to  show  that  one  law  of  the 
most  simple  character  governs  every  movement  of  the 
planetary  bodies.  The  most  subtle  disturbances,  as  well 
as  the  most  gigantic  movements,  are  alike  explicable  by  it. 
The  power  to  unravel  the  history  of  the  past,  the  ability 
to  predict  the  future,  are  proofs  that  the  magnificent  sys- 
tem of  universal  law  moves  on  from  age  to  age  unaltered. 
The  student  who  directs  his  attention  to  the  past  history  of 
the  world,  and  who  employs  a  curious  and  minute  examina- 
tion of  the  rocks  of  the  globe,  to  read  therein  the  history 
of  those  orders  of  existence  which,  during  cycles  of  time 
of  incalculable  amount,  have  successively  occupied  this 
planet,  finds  that  in  the  distant  depths  of  its  primeval  his- 
tory the  same  laws  were  in  operation  as  novf ;  matter  crys- 
tallized in  the  same  forms,  heat  and  cold  obeyed  the  same 
conditions  as  at  present ;  vegetable  and  animal  life  con- 
formed to  the  same  structure.  The  mother  fern  then,  as 
now,  sheltered  the  infant  leaflet,  wrapped  up  within  the 
coils  of  its  own  form.  The  animal  races  were  created,  lived, 
and  passed  away  just  as  now.  And  if  we  pass  from  these 
studies  of  other  planets,  and  of  the  ancient  history  of  our 
own  earth,  to  that  small  portion  of  its  existence  over  which 
human  history  extends,  the  man  of  science  here  again 
thinks  that  he  can  exhibit  laws  in  operation  even  over  man. 
The  same  laws  govern  human  society,  and  move  in  popular 
commotions,  and  find  play  in  human  motives  now  which 
acted  of  old.  History  can  offer  her  generalizations.  Man, 
like  matter,  comes  under  the  domain  of  law. 

Can  we  wonder,  then,  that  from  the  earliest  discovery, 
and  with  each  succeeding  confirmation  of  the  permanence 
of  Nature's  laws,  there  has  grown  up  a  difficulty  in  believing 
that  system  of  special  Providence  which  the  Bible  unfolds? 


ON    GENERAL    LAWS.  63 

The  contrast  is  felt,  that  Science  teaches  general  laws,  the 
Bible,  special  adaptations.  Science  shows  the  undeviating 
character  of  Nature's  methods :  the  Bible,  their  constant 
alteration  in  obedience  to  human  prayers.  Science  is  scep- 
tical of  a  providential  interference  on  the  part  of  the  Divine 
Being :  the  Bible  teaches  that  He  is  not  far  from  any  one 
of  us.  "  For  in  Him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our 
being." 

We  believe  that  there  is  truth  in  both  of  these  views. 
There  is  a  scientific  side  of  the  theory  of  Providence,  and 
a  biblical  view  of  it.  The  one  teaches  it  to  us  as  known  to 
the  natural  senses  ;  the  other  penetrates  the  darkness  which 
hides  the  spiritual  and  the  invisible ; — the  one  tells  us  of 
God's  works  and  government ;  the  other,  of  His  will  and 
purposes.  We  shall  be  compelled  to  restrict  our  attention 
in  the  present  discourse  to  the  former,  omitting  the  con- 
sideration of  the  Scripture  view  of  Providence  and  its  har- 
mony with  the  scientific* 

1  have  already,  in  introducing  the  subject,  sketched  some 
proofs  which  science  has  to  offer,  to  show  that  the  system 
of  nature  is  administered  on  a  general  plan.  But  the 
great  evidence  of  that  generality  which  I  wish  now  to 
bring  before  you,  arises  from  the  circumstance  that  it 
seems  plain  not  only  that  the  Divine  Being  governs  the 
world  by  general  laws,  but  that  when  the  violation  or  clash- 
ing of  these  general  laws  bears  hard  on  individuals.  He 
mysteriously  on  some  occasions  allows  them  to  take  their 
course  in  spite  of  the  partial  suffering  which  they  produce. 
Such  an  illustration,  while  it  furnishes  proof  of  our  princi- 

*  This  Sermon  was  to  have  been  followed  by  one  on  Special  Provi- 
dence, which  the  writer  had  not  the  opportunity  of  preaching.  The  line 
of  inquiry  which  he  intended  to  adopt  is  indicated  in  a  note  at  the  con- 
clusion of  the  present  Sermon. 


64:  SERMON    II. 

pie,  will  offer  also  an  opportunity  for  showing  the  wisdom 
and  benevolence  of  such  an  arrangement ;  and  thus  of 
harmonizing  the  ideas  of  God's  love  and  wisdom  with  that 
of  His  power. 

"We  may  draw  some  instances  of  the  mysterious  fact 
which  we  assert,  from  common  events  of  Nature,  such  as 
accidents,  pestilence,  and  the  like.  It  will  be  desirable  to 
picture  to  ourselves  one  of  such  scenes,  in  order  to  realize 
vividly  the  idea  which  we  are  striving  to  grasp.  It  shall 
be  selected  from  one  of  those  natural  evils  which  fall  upon 
man  without  his  own  fault  and  which  he  is  powerless  to 
resist.  There  is  one  of  this  kind  recorded  in  history,  which 
will  always  have  a  prominent  interest,  as  having  first 
awakened  the  religious  speculations  of  the  philosopher 
Goethe,*  and  aroused  a  controversy  on  Providence  between 
those  two  gifted  men  whose  cenotaphs  lie  beneath  the  noble 
dome  which  grateful  France  erected  to  the  great  of  her 
sons.f  It  is  that  great  calamity  which  about  a  century 
ago  overwhelmed  the  capital  of  Portugal.^ 

A  fine  autumn  morning  shone  on  the  devoted  city,  and 
showed  the  groves  and  buildings,  spreading  up  the  heights, 
sparkling  in  beauty.  The  multitudes  of  its  population  had 
assembled  in  the  churches  to  hear  the  morning  mass,  when 
suddenly  an  unaccustomed  sound  was  heard,  a  long  mys- 
terious rumble,  which  grew  louder  as  it  approached ;  and 
when  it  seemed  at  hand,  the  whole  city  rocked  like  a  ship 
heaving  in  a  storm  ;  the  houses  crumbled  into  heaps ;  the 

*  Lewes'  "Life  of  Goethe/'  i,  31. 

t  "Aux  grands  hommcs  la  Patrie  reconnaissante,"  was  the  inscrip- 
tion on  the  frieze  of  the  Pantheon. 

X  The  earthquake  occurred  on  All  Saints'  Day,  1755.  The  authority 
for  the  following  account  is  Davy's  "  Letters  on  Literature."  I  have 
searched  in  vain  in  the  Portuguese  literature  for  the  official  statistics. 


ON    GENERAL   LAWS.  65 

churches  fell,  and  interred  in  their  ruins  the  assembled 
congregations.  A  few  escaped  into  the  streets  ;  but  another 
shock  speedily  followed  and  destroyed  many  of  them  under 
the  falling  ruins.  A  large  number  fled  to  the  edge  of  the 
sea,  and  took  refuge  on  the  pier  ;  but  lo !  to  their  horror, 
the  great  earthquake  wave,*  travelling  according  to  well 
understood  principles  at  a  slower  rate  than  the  undulation 
in  the  solid  ground,  rolled  into  the  shore, — one  huge  wave 
of  water  many  fathoms  in  depth.  In  one  instant  a  mass 
of  several  thousand  human  beings  was  swept  from  that  pier 
into  the  sea;  and  when  the  survivors,  after  the  event, 
looked  round  on  the  scene  of  the  catastrophe,  they  beheld 
the  glorious  city  which  but  a  few  moments  previously  had 
been  bright  with  beauty  and  life,  a  mass  of  ruins,  with 
more  than  sixty  thousand  of  its  population  buried  in  its  fall. 
"  Great  and  marvellous  are  Thy  Avorks,  Lord  God  Almighty ; 
who  shall  not  fear  Thee,  0  Lord,  and  glorify  Thy  name  ?" 
Who  is  there  that  does  not  ponder  on  the  mystery  of 
that  horror  ?  Who  does  not  marvel  why  the  woe  fell  on 
that  city  ?  If  you  had  asked  mankind  of  old  the  explana- 
tion of  that  catastrophe,  they  would  have  asserted  that  it 
was  an  immediate  judgment  from  heaven  sent  to  overtake 
the  guilty  city,  just  as  the  barbarians  of  Melita  judged, 
when,  seeing  the  viper  fasten  on  St.  Paul's  hand,  they 
looked  upon  it  as  the  messenger  of  heaven  sent  to  slay  the 
murderer  who  had,  indeed,  escaped  the  shipwreck,  but 
whom  vengeance  suffered  not  to  live.  But  our  blessed 
Lord,  once  and  for  ever,  forbade  such  cruel  surmises  con- 
cerning others,  Avhen,  in  alluding  to  a  recent  accident  of 

^  See  Daubeny's  "  Volcanos,"  part  2,  cli.  32,  33  ;  Mallet  on  the  Dy- 
namics of  Earthquakes,  in  "  Trans.  Roy.  Irish  Acad.  1845." 

6* 


G6  SERMON    II. 

4- 

his  own  time  in  Jerusalem,  He  said,*  "Those  eighteen  on 
whom  the  tower  in  Siloam  fell  and  slew  them,  think  ye 
thej  were  sinners  above  all  men  that  dwelt  in  Jerusalem  ? 
I  tell  you  nay."  The  lesson  was  not  for  them  to  judge 
others,  but  to  take  warning  to  be  ready  themselves. 

We  may  well  believe,  indeed,  that  our  adorable  Saviour 
enunciated  in  this  passage,  and  in  another  similar  one, 
which  relates  to  the  man  who  was  born  blind,t  a  great  and 
mysterious  truth,  which,  like  so  many  other  great  truths  of 
the  Bible,  has  been  marvellously  corroborated  by  the  dis- 
coveries of  modern  science.  That  truth  is,  that  not  all  suf- 
fering is  the  result  of  immediate  sin.  We  have  reason, 
indeed,  for  believing  that  there  is  in  the  case  of  man  some 
real  and  mysterious  connection  between  sin  and  sorrow; 
though  our  Lord  here  plainly  implies  that  special  suffering 
may  be  the  effect  oi general  sin  instead  of  speciahX 

But  if  we  pass  from  man  to  the  animal  kingdom,  we  find 
clear  proof  of  the  existence  of  suffering  and  death  in  pe- 
riods of  the  earth's  history  antecedent  to  the  creation  of 
man,  antecedent,  that  is,  to  the  .existence  of  human  sin.§ 
And  though  we  are  not  absolutely  warranted  in  extending 
to  man  the  separation  between  sin  and  sorrow  which  we 
thus  see  existing  in  the  case  of  animals,  yet  we  should 
naturally  infer  from  such  fact  an  antecedent  probability 
that  human  history  would  offer  some  examples  where 
human  suffering  w^as  not  the  effect  of  sin,  but  merely  a 
continuation  of  that  larger  system  of  the  permission  of 
pain  by  Providence,  of  the  operation  of  which,  antece- 
dently to  human  creation,  we  find  positive  proof.     May 

*  Luke  13  :  4.  t  John  9  :  3. 

X  Compare  Bishop  Warburton's  Sermon  on  the  Lisbon  Catastrophe 
(Works,  V,  pp.  28G-298). 

^  Sec  the  next  Sermon,  and  the  nulc  at  p.  89. 


ON    GENERAL    LAWS.  67 

we  not  take  the  probable  existence  of  such  instances  as 
an  unexpected  means  of  explanation  and  corroboration  of 
our  Lord's  words  ?  May  we  not  adduce  them,  as  in  some 
humble  degree  explanatory  also  of  the  permission  of  woe 
in  cases  where  we  have  no  reason  to  infer  the  existence  of 
a  judgment  for  sin  ?  Though  we  must  speak  with  hesita- 
tion, and  cannot  hope  to  penetrate  far  into  the  purposes 
and  plans  of  the  inscrutable  God,  yet  we  may  humbly  and 
reverently  venture  to  hope  that  we  may  gain  by  contem- 
plating the  Divine  doings  some  trace  of  the  possible  cause 
of  such  permitted  woes.  Accordingly,  in  speculating  upon 
great  calamities  like  the  Lisbon  earthquake,  we  are  com- 
pelled with  reverence  to  answer,  that  the  event  was,  to 
speak  after  the  manner  of  men,  an  accident ;  that  certain 
causes  producing  earthquakes  are  at  work  in  the  interior 
of  our  planet,  and  that  those  causes  acted  at  that  moment 
and  in  that  particular  spot.*  More  we  cannot  say.  We 
cannot  tell  why  some  counter  force  was  not  benevolently 
operating  to  prevent  it.  We  take  it  as  a  proof  that  the 
operation  of  general  causes  is  not  suspended  by  the  Al- 
mighty, and  occasionally  not  even  checked  by  counter 
causes,  but  is  still  allowed  to  go  forward,  even  when  the 
continued  effect  of  their  action  is  the  means  of  destroying 
sixty  thousand  persons  who  were  not  instrumental  to  pro- 
duce the  mischief,  and  who  were  powerless  to  avert  it. 

*  If  further  proof  of  this  position  were  needed,  it  might  be  found  in 
the  fact  that  where  earthquakes  have  occurred  in  districts  which  are 
various  in  their  geological  character,  the  destructive  effects  of  the 
earthquake  have  depended  on  the  peculiarity  of  the  strata  on  which  the 
different  towns  lay.  The  places,  e.g.,  situated  on  crystalline  limestone 
have  been  almost  unhurt ;  those,  on  the  contrary,  which  lay  on  clay  or 
lava,  have  been  been  rocked  into  ruins.  See  Scacchi's  account,  '^  Del 
Monte  Vulture  e  del  Tremuoto  ivi  avvenuto  nel  anno  1851  ;"  and 
Lyell's  "  Principles  of  Geology,"  eh.  28. 


68  SERMON  ir. 

We  might  pass  to  other  proofs  that  God  mysteriously 
permits  general  laws  to  operate  without  interfering  to 
check  the  misery  which  they  inflict,  drawn  from  accidents 
which  are  the  effect  of  man's  own  imprudence  and  w^ant  of 
foresight,  but  which  involve  in  their  consequences  those 
who  are  innocent  of  participation  in  the  neglect  which  is 
their  cause.  Consider,  for  example,  the  terrific  explo- 
sions which  not  unfrequently  occur  in  collieries.  Picture 
to  yourselves  one  of  those  scenes.  At  the  depth  of  hun- 
dreds of  feet  below  the  surface  of  the  ground  there  exists 
a  subterranean  city,  in  which  the  coal  rock  is  quarried  by 
men  living  in  a  close  temperature,  supplied  artificially  with 
air  and  light,  in  presence  of  the  constant  development  of  a 
noxious  and  inflammable  gas.  Long  galleries,  diverging 
like  the  streets  of  a  city,  separate  the  miners  by  miles  of 
tunnelled  passages  from  the  only  outlet  which  exists  in 
case  of  danger.  In  spite  of  all  precautions  on  the  part  of 
the  proprietors,  some  sudden  act  of  imprudence  occurs  on 
the  part  of  some  miner.  The  gas  ignites,  overpowers  the 
force  of  the  artificial  current  of  air,  and  sweeps,  with  de- 
vouring rush,  through  the  close  galleries  of  the  mine. 
Many  are  instantly  hurried  into  eternity ;  or,  cut  off  in 
remote  parts  of  the  mine  and  unable  to  communicate  with 
the  surface,  they  die  cruelly  of  starvation  or  are  burnt  by 
the  fire,  which,  igniting  the  solid  coal  rock,  turns  those 
caves  into  a  vast  subterranean  furnace.* 

Is  there  no  kind  Being  to  aid  those  innocent  men  who 
die  by  accident  or  the  imprudence  of  a  fellow-workman  ? 
Is  there  no  God  of  mercy  to  notice  their  unprepared  souls 
about  to  be  called  to  His  judgment-scat, — none  to  sec  the 


*  This,  it  will  be  remembered,  is  a  literal  description  of  the  accident 
at  a  colliery  at  Lund  PliJl,  near  Barnslej,  in  January,  1857. 


ON    GENERAL    LAWS.  69 

life-long  sorrows  of  children  cast  upon  this  wicked  world 
fatherless  ;  and  of  wives  cast  upon  this  cruel  world  widows  ? 
Yes  !  there  is  a  Divine  Being;  but  He  is  pleased  to  govern 
by  general  laws.  And  the  general  law  that  gas  shall, 
under  certain  circumstances,  ignite,  is  in  His  mysterious 
Providence  allowed  to  have  its  course.  The  circumstance 
comes,  the  law  holds  on  its  course,  and  the  catastrophe  is 
its  consequence ;  and  the  mode  (as  I  shall  presently  show 
you)  by  which  we  reconcile  such  occurrences  with  the 
Divine  benevolence  is  by  supposing  that  the  suspension 
of  the  general  law  would  be  a  greater  evil  than  that  which 
ensues  by  its  being  allowed  to  have  its  course. 

We  might  multiply  illustrations,  but  it  is  only  necessary 
to  refer  further  to  one  event  of  deep  sadness  which  will 
suggest  itself  to  every  mind.  We  may  learn  in  the  mise- 
ries that  have  befallen  our  eastern  empire  how  true  it  is 
that  the  Divine  Being  in  some  respects  leaves  nations,  as 
well  as  mere  brute  unconscious  matter,  to  the  operation  of 
general  laws.  Let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  I  do  not  mean 
that  the  Indian  revolt  is  purposeless  on  the  part  of  Provi- 
dence ;  but  I  wish  you  to  separate  between  the  moral 
lesson  which  men  may  derive  from  a  calamity,  and  the 
final  cause  or  purpose  why  the  Divine  Being  has  sent  it. 
When  the  explosion  has  happened  in  the  mine,  we  natu- 
rally gather  a  lesson  of  precaution  against  the  recurrence 
of  the  accident,  but  we  should  not  suppose  that  the  Al- 
mighty had  sent  the  explosion  specially  to  lead  us  to 
improve  the  lamp  and  to  rebuild  the  air-courses  of  our 
mine.  Rather  we  should  attribute  the  accident  to  a 
general  law,  and  without  pretending  to  fathom  the  mo- 
tives or  purposes  of  the  Almighty,  we  should  derive  a 
valuable  lesson  from  the  occurrence.  Similarly  also  in 
the  existence  of  a  panic  in  commerce.    We  ought  to  gather 


70  SERMON   II. 

a  lesson  as  to  our  own  deportment  in  guarding  against  its 
recurrence,  without  supposing  that  Providence  hud  sent  us 
the  woe  simply  to  teach  us  this  lesson. 

The  case  is  similar  with  respect  to  the  miseries  in  India. 
It  has  been  commonly  asserted  by  irreflective  minds  that 
those  woes  have  been  sent  as  a  direct  visitation  for  the 
simple  purpose  of  arousing  slumbering  England  to  evange- 
lize Hindostan.  This  is  right  and  logical  if  they  mean  that 
such  may  lawfully  be  our  lesson  from  them  in  order  to  pre- 
vent their  recurrence,  just  as  the  explosion  of  the  coal-mine 
warns  us  to  take  measures  against  its  repetition,  or  as  the 
outbreak  of  a  fever  stimulates  us  to  use  sanitary  measures. 

I  should  be  sorry  if  I  were  thought  by  my  remarks  to 
undervalue  that  blessed,  that  godlike  work  of  missionary 
labor  in  which  so  many  saints  have  won  for' themselves 
immortal  honor.  The  names  of  Xavier  and  Schwartz,  and 
Heber  and  Martyn,  inscribed  in  the  roll  of  the  Christian 
heroes, — men  of  whom  the  w^orld  was  not  worthy, — who 
have  perished  in  striving  to  evangelize  Hindostan,  would 
testify  against  him  who  should  be  impious  enough  to  under- 
value the  work  which  they  loved  to  the  death.  "  I  saw 
under  the  altar  the  souls  of  them  that  were  slain  for  the 
word  of  God,  and  for  the  testimony  which  they  held.  And 
white  robes  were  given  unto  every  one  of  them.  Therefore 
are  they  before  the  throne  of  God,  and  serve  him  day  and 
night  in  his  temple."* 

Yet  though  I  would  not  undervalue  the  moral  lesson  of 
increased  missionary  activity  which  is  taught  us  by  the  In- 
dian miseries,  let  us  be  careful  not  to  confound  this  with 
the  notion  that  no  other  object  entered  into  the  Almighty's 
purposes  than  the  effecting  this  moral  result,  just  as  we 

*Rcv.6:  8-11;  7:  15. 


ON    GENERAL    LAWS.  71 

should  avoid  the  confusion  of  supposing  that  His  sole  object 
in  sending  a  fever  is  to  lead  men  to  attend  to  sanitary  con- 
siderations. In  each  such  case  of  an  earthquake,  or  a 
fever,  or  a  rebellion,  we  ought  to  distinguish  the  three 
following  things  one  from  another : — 1st,  the  antecedent 
causes  which  have  brought  about  the  event ;  2d,  the  moral 
purpose  which  the  Deity  may  have  had  in  sending  or  per- 
mitting it ;  and  3d,  the  moral  lesson  which  man  may 
rationally  gather  from  it  for  his  own  conduct.  Accord- 
ingly, when  we  pass  from  the  moral  lesson  in  each  case 
which  we  may  properly  collect,  and  from  speculating  about 
the  purposes  of  the  Divine  Being,  concerning  which  we 
really  know  nothing,  except  when  they  are  revealed  to  us 
by  an  inspired  prophet,  to  examine  into  the  causes,  i,  e.  the 
antecedent  circumstances  from  which  each  of  such  phe- 
nomena has  arisen,  we  shall  find  them  to  be  brought  about 
by  the  uniform  operation  of  fixed  causes.  The  atrocities  of 
the  Hindoo  rebellion  are  unfortunately  no  isolated  phe- 
nomenon, but  almost  find  their  parallel  in  severity,  if  not 
in  concentration  (we  regret  to  have  to  say  it),  in  other  cen- 
turies of  the  world's  history.  The  mutiny  of  a  pampered 
army  under  the  combined  influence  of  religious  panic  and 
frantic  patriotism,  at  the  suggestion  of  designing  persons, 
is  no  isolated  phenomenon ;  both  alike  have  arisen  hereto- 
fore from  the  play  of  human  passion  and  human  appetition, 
and  will  continue  to  arise  unto  the  end  of  time ;  and  mys- 
terious as  is  the  slaughter  of  hundreds  of  our  innocent 
countrym.en,  we  take  that  mystery  to  be  but  another  proof 
of  the  wondrous  administration  of  the  Almighty  by  general 
laws.  As  an  instance  of  an  indiscriminate  slaughter  of 
guilty  and  guiltless,  we  place  it  parallel  in  the  page  of  his- 
tory with  the  devastation  of  the  Palatinate  in  the  17th 
century;  or  with  the  massacre  of  the  French  which  dis- 


72  SERMON   II. 

graced  Sicily  in  the  ISth ;  or  that  still  more  fearful  atro- 
city, -which  stands  out  from  among  the  many  bloody  deeds 
of  the  16th  as  a  monument  of  crime,  the  massacre  of  the 
Huguenots  on  the  Feast  of  St.  Bartholomew. 

All,  especially  the  last,  are  instances  of  a  mighty  slaugh- 
ter permitted  by  a  Providence  which  interfered  not  to  stop 
those  general  laws  which  regulate  human  passion,  nor  to 
intercept  those  effects  which  the  ingenuity  of  human  sin 
produces.  All  alike  are  but  tlie  repetition,  in  political 
accidents,  of  the  earthquake,  or  the  explosion,  or  the  pesti- 
lence in  the  physical.  You  may  gather  what  lessons  you 
please  as  to  your  future  behavior  in  order  to  prevent  their 
recurrence.  But  if  you  look  to  the  cause  of  what  is  past, 
you  find  its  explanation  in  that  mighty  wonder  which  we 
are  wishing  to  impress  upon  you, — that  causes  which  in- 
volve suffering  are  allowed  by  Providence  to  have  their 
play,  even  though  they  involve  the  innocent  in  the  sweep 
of  their  operation ;  that  it  seems  true  that  in  some  regions 
of  nature  (if  we  may  use  the  illustration  without  irreve- 
rence) Providence  allows  the  world  to  move  on,  like  some 
great  machine,*  which  its  author  has  set  in  motion  as  it 
were  (to  speak  after  the  manner  of  men),  but  with  some  of 
whose  wheels  and  movements  he  is  not  pleased  afterwards 
to  interfere.  "  Canst  thou  by  searching  find  out  God  ? 
Canst  thou  find  out  the  Almighty  to  perfection?" 

I  have  now  offered  a  few  illustrations  of  the  absolute  in- 
variability of  some  portion  of  the  Divine  administration  by 
law,  even  when  such  invariability  is  fraught  with  suffering 
to  individuals.  But  I  should  be  very  sorry  if  I  were  to 
leave  on  your  minds  the  impression  that  there  is  any  degree 
of  injustice,  or  any  absence  of  benevolence  in  the  permission 

'^  Compare  Bab1)arje's  "  Bridgewatcr  Treatise,"  ch.  8. 


ON    GENERAL   LAWS.  73 

of  these  miseries,  or  that  there  is  no  real  Providence  in 
them.  We  are  obliged  to  conceive  of  such  events  under 
the  medium  of  human  language  and  the  illustrations  drawn 
from  human  experience ;  and  so  I  spoke  just  now  of  the 
world  as  one  great  "  machine"  which,  as  it  were,  acted  by 
delegated  power  without  the  immediate  operation  of  God. 
I  meant  not  this  to  be  understood  literally,  but  only  by 
way  of  explanation.  When  we  speak  of  such  uniform 
operations  of  general  laws,  we  intend  not  to  exclude  the 
idea  of  God  as  working  and  omnipresent;  we  only  express 
the  uniformity  of  the  system  according  to  which  He  is 
pleased  to  work.  Our  finite  minds  cannot  comprehend 
the  operations  of  a  Being  whose  government  sustains  the 
universe,  any  more  than  we  can  comprehend  the  attributes 
of  His  infinite  mind.  So,  without  doubt,  if  we  could  com- 
prehend that  infinite  system,  we  should  see  that  the  catas- 
trophe is  not  unnoticed  by  God,  the  material  law  not  dis- 
connected with  the  moral,  natural  accident  and  moral  gov- 
ernment not  without  their  links  of  union. 

And  as  I  wish  you  not  to  carry  away  the  notion  that 
there  is  no  Providence  in  catastrophes,  so  also  you  should 
not  think  of  them  as  marked  by  injustice.  In  questions  of 
this  kind  it  is  enough  for  us  to  rest  in  the  fact  that  other 
and  more  comprehensive  instances  of  Divine  benevolence 
exist,  which  show  that  the  general  purpose  of  the  scheme 
of  nature  is  a  benevolent  one.*     Our  inability  to  compre- 

*  This  principle  of  "the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number" 
has,  it  is  v/ell  known,  been  adopted  as  the  ground  of  morals  in  Ben- 
tham's  philosophy.  Pope,  at  an  earlier  period,  not  only  applied  it  as 
the  rule  of  human  conduct,  but  as  the  measure  of  the  Almighty's  pur- 
poses, e.  g. : — 

"The  universal  Cause 
Acts  not  by  partial,  but  by  general  laws, 
1 


74  SERMON    II. 

hend  that  scheme  as  a  Avliole  may  Avell  make  us  sure  that 
if  we  could  so  understand  it,  Ave  should  see  that  these  ap- 
parent exceptions  are  not  such  in  reality.  Just  as  if  we 
stood  looking  on  an  ingenious  machine,  the  general  eiTect 
of  which  evinced  consummate  wisdom  in  its  maker,  we 
should  at  once  think  that  any  portion  of  it  which  seemed 
useless  or  injurious  would  have  its  use,  if  the  inventor  of  it 
were  to  explain  to  us  the  plan  of  the  instrument ;  so  when 
we  look  on  the  great  machine  of  the  world  or  the  universe, 
we  may  be  sure  that  the  apparent  exceptions  to  a  benevo- 
lent object  in  its  construction  would  be  seen  to  be  reducible 
to  agreement  with  the  Divine  mercy,  if  we  could  compre- 
hend its  scheme  and  its  harmonies.  Nay,  the  very  idea  of 
these  apparent  severities  which  I  have  attempted  to  convey 
to  you,  has  been  intended  to  remove  any  misgiving  which 
might  be  felt  in  reference  to  them.  For  though  we  cannot 
hope  to  explain  them  fully,  yet  we  have  ventured  to  suggest 
a  partial  explanation,  viz.,  that  such  apparent  severities 
arise  from  the  fact  that  the  Almighty  allows  general  laws 
to  operate,  and  the  very  idea  of  a  general  law  possibly  ex- 
cludes (as  Bishop  Butler  observes)  the  idea  of  meeting  all 
possible  contingencies,"^  and  implies  that  it  must  bear 
heavily  in  some  special  instances.     We  do  not  assert  that 

And  makes  what  happiness  we  justly  call, 

Subsist  not  in  the  good  of  one  but  all.'"     (Ep.  4  :  35.) 

The  writer  of  these  Sermons  does  not  wholly  accede  to  either  of  these 
applications  of  it  5  l^ut  merely  sug^rests  that,  in  the  absence  of  any  bet- 
ter explanation  of  the  mystery,  we  may  lawfully  adopt  the  principle  in 
the  kind  of  manner  developed  in  the  text,  as  a  probable  means  of  re- 
conciling God's  permission  of  sufTering  with  the  idea  of  benevolence  in 
His  character, 

■'^  Butler's  "Analogy,"  part  i,  ch.  8,  p.  132.     See  Brown's  ''Philo- 
sophical Works,"  vol.  iv,  Lcct.  03,  94-. 


ON    GENEFvAL    LAWS.  75 

this  is  the  case,  but  we  put  the  supposition  that,  even  if  it 
be  so,  there  is  benevolence  seen  on  the  hirge  scale  even  here ; 
for  the  government  by  general  laws  is  itself  an  act  of  be- 
nevolence. 

We  need  only  reflect  for  an  instant  on  the  amazing  wis- 
dom shown  in  some  of  these  general  laws  and  adaptations, 
in  order  to  feel  convinced  that  the  wisdom  is  itself  benevo- 
lence. A  familiar  illustration  will  explain  my  meaning, 
the  use  of  which  may  be  permitted,  though  I  have  made 
use  of  the  same  thought  in  this  place  before.*  Go  forth 
any  fine  evening  and  cast  your  eyes  upwards  to  the  stars 
scattered  in  glittering  millions  on  the  dark  vault  of  the 
heavens.  Though  numerous  as  the  sands  upon  the  sea- 
shore, yet  the  movement  of  each  star  and  each  system  is 
regulated  by  the  most  complete  harmony.  We  know  little 
of  the  vast  number  of  those  heavenly  bodies  ;  but  of  a  few 
which  lie  nearer  to  our  earth  we  know  enough  to  be  able  to 
understand  their  movements  and  to  predict  their  positions. 
And  when  by  the  engine  of  a  refined  calculation  we  com- 
pute their  relations  in  distant  time  to  come,  we  are  allowed 
to  understand  the  amazing  wisdom  with  which  the  Divine 
Creator  has  guided  their  movements.  For  in  estimating 
the  mutual  disturbances  of  the  elements  of  their  orbits,  we 
are  brought  to  conceive  of  a  time  in  the  distant  future, 
when  it  seems  that  their  perturbations  shall  exceed  the  con- 
ditions of  stability,  and  cause  an  immense  catastrophe. 
And  is  there  really  to  be  this  catastrophe  ?  No  !  at  the 
very  moment  when  we  seem  on  its  verge,  we  find  that  a 
series  of  compensations  will  comm.ence,  which  will  precisely 


•^  The  allusion  here  is  again  (as  at  p.  48)  to  Lagrange's  problems. 
The  mathematician  Avill  remark  that  rigorous  precision  of  description 
is  intentionally  sacrificed  for  the  purpose  of  clearness  of  illustration. 


76  SERMON    II. 

bring  back  the  system  to  that  state  in  which  it  existed 
before.  The  system  has  oscillated  like  a  pendulum  to  that 
point,  and  then  begins  its  backward  circuit.  The  cycle  of 
time  required  for  that  reversal  of  the  oscillation  (if  we  may 
so  describe  it)  must  be  in  some  cases  millions  of  years.  So 
that  we  arrive  at  this  stupendous  result,  that  the  Divine 
Being  has  impressed  a  simple  law  upon  these  heavenly 
bodies  according  to  which  they  move ;  and  yet  this  law  is 
so  exquisitely  perfect,  that  He  has  by  it  anticipated  the 
contingencies  which  will  occur  in  the  inconceivably  distant 
depths  of  future  time.  "  Lo,  these  are  but  a  part  of  His 
ways.  Canst  thou  find  out  the  Almighty  to  perfection  ? 
It  is  as  high  as  heaven,  what  canst  thou  do  ?  deeper  than 
hell,  what  canst  thou  know  ?"  As  you  meditate  on  that 
consummate  wisdom  and  prescience,  is  it  not  a  proof  that 
the  government,  by  generaljaws,  is  itself  an  act  of  benevo- 
lence ?     The  wisdom  is  the  benevolence. 

And  as  we  see  this  truth  in  the  physical,  so  also  it  holds 
good  in  the  moral  world.  If  I  could  not  know  the  mind 
of  God  with  regard  to  me,  if  He  governed  me  by  caprice. 
His  conduct  differing  towards  mo  to-day  from  what  it  was 
yesterday,  I  should  not  know  how  to  deport  myself  before 
Him ;  but  as  He  governs  by  general  laws,  His  character 
never  varying,  from  everlasting  to  everlasting  unchanging, 
I  accept  that  government  itself  as  the  best  proof  of  His 
benevolence,  because  I  see  that  it  gives  me  a  fixed  principle 
by  which  to  guide  my  conduct.  If  1  sin,  I  know  that  there 
is  no  escape  from  the  law  which  unalterably  annexes  punish- 
ment to  the  offence  ;  if  I  obey  God's  laws,  I  know  that  their 
stability  is  the  guarantee  of  my  security.  So  that  we  can 
now  not  only  say,  ''  Great  and  marvellous  are  thy  works, 
0  Lord  God  Almighty;*'  but   also,  ''Just  are  thy  ways, 


ON    GENERAL    LAWS.  77 

thou  King  of  saints ;  who  shall  not  fear  thee,  0  Lord,  and 
glorify  thy  name?" 

Here  we  must  pause,  omitting  the  consideration  of  the 
consoling  doctrine  of  a  Special  Providence  which  is  revealed 
in  Holy  Scripture.  The  necessity  for  this  omission  is  to 
be  regretted,  because  there  is  always  harm  in  the  exclusive 
attention  to  one  side  of  a  solemn  question  like  this,  and 
more  especially  when  we  arc  groping  for  truth  without  the 
guidance  which  the  blessed  Spirit  of  God  offers  us  in  His 
inspired  word.  I  have  wished  to  speak  of  this  subject  in  a 
reverent  manner,  and  though  presenting  strongly  the 
secular  view  of  Providence,  yet  I  have  endeavored  to  har- 
monize the  proofs  of  God's  power  in  universal  law  with  His 
wisdom  and  benevolence.  It  is  nevertheless  possible  that 
on  such  a  subject  our  speculations  may  be  wholly  wrong ; 
the  views  which  I  have  given  may  involve  some  huge  mis- 
take. If  such  be  the  case,  may  God  forgive  them,  and 
overrule  the  errors  for  His  honor !  We  search  for  truth  ; 
but  when  we  attempt  to  lift  the  veil  of  the  spiritual  without 
the  aid  of  the  voice  from  the  unseen,  we  grope  well-nigh  in 
vain : — 

"  As  infants  crying  in  the  night, 
As  infants  crying  for  the  light. 

And  with  no  language  but  a  cry."* 

Yet  I  hope  that  we  have  arrived  at  a  nobler  and  more 
cheerful  view  of  Providence  than  those  Stoics  and  Epi- 
cureans held,  to  whom  St.  Paul  proclaimed  that  God  is  not 
far  from  every  one  of  us.  For  we  have  wished  to  think  of 
Nature's  laws  only  as  God's  mode  of  working,  and  their 
invariability  as   the  unchangeableness   of   His   all-perfect 

*  Tennyson's  '^  In  Memoriam,"  p.  77. 


78  SERMON    II. 

government.*  And  I  have  failed  to  convey  to  you  the 
meaning  which  I  desired,  if  I  do  not  send  you  home  with 
the  conviction  that  even  the  darkest  dispensations  of  Provi- 
dence are  an  equal  proof  of  God's  love  with  the  brightest ; 
that  the  suiferer  in  his  deepest  moment  of  gloom  is  as  much 
the  object  of  his  Maker's  care  as  when  abounding  in  joy. 
The  Divine  Being  sees  that  mourner,  for  He  is  not  far  from 
any  of  us ;  and  if  He  sees  wise  in  his  Providence  not  to 
suspend  the  law  which  brings  the  suffering,  that  absence 
(to  speak  after  the  m.anner  of  men)  of  interference  is  not 
neglect.  He  is  really  bestowing  his  care.  The  sufferer  is 
under  the  Providence  of  a  personal  God.  Oh,  it  is  a  joyous 
thought  that  yon  Englishwomen  who  were  lately  martyred 
for  their  country's  honor  in  the  far  East  were  as  much  the 
objects  of  God's  care,  though  He  wrought  no  miracle  to 
protect  them  from  the  fierceness  of  human  passion,  as  their 
sisters  who  land  on  our  shores  daily  with  their  tale  of  woe 
and  their  grateful  hymn  of  deliverance.  Yon  soldiers, 
whose  memory  is  so  dear  to  us,  who,  in  the  assault  of  our 
enemy's  stronghold, f  paid  with  their  lives  for  the  noble 
prize  of  victory  which  their  country  has  won,  were  as  much 
the  object  of  their  Maker's  care,  though  His  hand  warded 
not  from  them  the  stroke  of  death,  as  their  comrades,  whom 
w^e  shall  welcome  back  to  our  land,  w'aving  in  triumph  the 
colors  which  they  proudly  followed  to  victor3^  It  is  a 
joyous  lesson  to  learn  from  this  contemplation  of  God's 
general  laws,  that,  suffer  what  we  may,  and  die  where  we 
may,  the  suffering  is  not  directed  by  chance.  It  is  not 
inflicted  on  us  capriciously;  its  infliction  is  a  proof  of  love; 
for  it  is  part  of  a  great  system  which  is  guided  by  a  Being 

*  Sec  "  Dialogues  on  Providence,  by  a  Fellow  of  a  College,"  a  little 
work,  very  original  and  suggestive. 

t  Delhi,  recently  taken  wlieii  Ihio  Seruiuu  was  })reached. 


ON    GENERAL   LAWS.  79 

all-powerful  and  all-loving.  It  comes  from  His  hand. 
Though  myriads  of  links  in  the  chain  of  causation  may 
separate  us  from  Him,  yet  it  is  His  act,  His  personal  act, 
the  expression  of  His  all-perfect  will,  "  for  in  Him  we  live, 
and  move,  and  have  our  being." 

Surely,  brethren,  under  this  light  the  consideration  of 
general  Providence  has  led  us  to  the  same  result  of  a  re- 
signed spirit  Avhich  the  Scripture  inculcates,  and  the  same 
confidence  which  it  inspires. 

Nor  is  it  necessary  to  add  one  word  more,  save  to  re- 
mind you  that  besides  this  general  Providence  of  which  we 
have  spoken,  there  is  another  system  taught  us  in  the  Bible 
(if  indeed  it  be  not  rather  in  some  incomprehensible  man- 
ner a  portion  of  the  same), — a  system  perhaps  in  itself  as 
general,  yet  suited  to  every  need,  directed  by  one  who 
knows  human  wants ;  for  it  is  administered  by  the  God- 
man  Jesus.  Here  we  can  take  our  refuge.  When  I  think 
of  those  laws  of  absolute  generality  which  Nature  shows  me, 
I  tremble  sometimes  lest  I  may  be  overlooked ;  but  when 
I  remember  that  in  Jesus  there  is  a  human  nature  mingled 
with  the  Divine,  I  feel  sure  that  He  is  a  being  who  knows 
what  special  w^ants  mean,  w^ho  can  be  touched  with  human 
sensibility,  and  can  remember  the  woes  and  temptations  of 
human  infirmity. 

What  a  blessed  and  amazing  thought  1  Yonder  on  the 
throne  there  sits  tliis  God-man.  Within  the  very  shrine 
of  the  eternal  glory,  He  has  mounted  up  to  plead  for  sin- 
ful men.  Yonder,  by  the  side  of  the  Infinite  One,  who 
hokls  in  the  compass  of  His  laws  of  infinite  generality  the 
infinity  of  the  visible  and  invisible  creation,  is  one  conscious 
of  our  needs  and  touched  with  our  infirmities. 

Yes  !  we  know  that  we  are  as  much  the  object  of  that 
Saviour's  mercy  as  though  this  universe  were  empty  of  all 


80  SERMON    II. 

inhabitants  but  ourselves.  He  knows  what  we  need.  He 
cannot  be  perplexed  by  multiplicity,  nor  confounded  by 
minuteness.  Therefore  we  may  leave  all  confidently  in  His 
hands,  committing  ourselves  to  Him  in  prayer;  and  though 
we  may  have  to  wait  for  the  dawn  of  the  eternal  morning  to 
illumine  some  of  the  dark  passages  of  His  Providence,  yet 
we  may  rest  confident  of  His  power,  His  wisdom,  and  His 
goodness.  He  is  omnipotent  to  save  us,  because  He  is  God. 
He  is  willing  to  help  us,  inasmuch  as  He  is  man. 

''  I  cannot  always  trace  the  way 

Wherein  the  Almighty  One  doth  move  ; 
But  I  can  always,  alwa3'S  say, 
That  God  is  love." 


Note 
On  Special  Providence. 

The  following  is  a  brief  outline  of  the  Sermon  on  this  subject,  which 
was  designed  to  follow  the  preceding  one : — 

First,  an  investigation,  conducted  historically,  into  the  teaching  of 
Scripture  on  the  subject,  would  have  been  given. 

Then,  a  sketch  of  the  schools  of  thought,  in  which  the  doctrine  of 
Special  Providence  has  been  denied,  with  illustrations  of  their  influence 
on  literature,  as,  e.g.  in  the  poetry  of  Pope. 

Next,  an  investigation  of  theories,  which  have  been  supposed  to  sug- 
gest a  reconciliation  of  the  doctrine  Avith  the  existence  of  general  laws, 
such  as  (-J.)  the  Monadic  theory  of  Leibnitz ;  with  illustrations,  showing 
how  modern  physical  investigations,  by  resolving  various  supposed 
forms  of  m.atter  iuio  poicer,  seem  to  lend  support  to  something  like  his 
theory;  and  {J2)  the  machine  theory  of  Babbage's  "  Bridgewater  Trea- 
tise." 

After  criticism  on  these  attempts  at  explanation,  it  was  proposed  to 


ON    GENERAL    LAWS.  81 

examine  whether  the  Scripture  teaching  must  be  surrendered,  as  merely 
a  human  or  Jewish  point  of  view;  and  to  show  that  such  is  not  the 
case,  by  offering  tests  to  distinguish  the  human  from  the  Divine  element 
in  the  inspired  teaching  of  Scripture. 

Thus,  assuming  that  we  must  believe  with  equal  confidence  in  general 
laws  on  the  evidence  of  Science,  and  Special  Providence  on  the  evidence 
of  the  teaching  of  Holy  Scripture,  it  was  proposed  to  examine  this 
apparent  paradox,  investigating  the  ideas  of  Mr.  Mansel  (at  that  time 
only  inferred  from  his  metaphysical  works,  and  from  his  tract  on  '^Eter- 
nity," but  now  so  ably  exhibited  in  his  "  Bampton  Lectures") — ideas 
which  are  in  part  an  application  of  Kant's  philosophy, — which  would 
make  such  a  paradox  to  arise  from  the  incapacity  of  the  human  mind 
to  comprehend  such  an  object,  not  from  real  contradiction  in  the  object 
known. 

After  this  investigation,  it  was  intended  to  suggest  the  possibility  of 
a  system  of  moral  providence  revealed  in  Scripture,  as  actual  part  of 
the  system  of  physical  providence,  developed  in  Science,  harmonious 
with  it,  and  not  contradictory  to  it. 

Lastly,  some  notice  would  have  been  taken  of  the  fallacy  by  which 
persons  conceive  of  a  general  law,  as  if  it  had  an  existence  apart  from 
the  individual  instances  which  make  it  up.  This  fallacy,  an  offshoot 
of  the  ancient  Realism,  besets  the  human  mind  alike  in  its  conception 
of  general  laws  in  nature,  and  of  God's  government  in  the  Christian 
Church.  The  body  of  the  Church  has  no  more  existence  apart  from 
its  members  than  a  general  law  has  apart  from  the  instances  v/hicli 
exemplify  it.  Part  of  the  confusion  in  regarding  laws  of  Nature  as 
being  distinct  from  God's  working  in  Nature,  seems  attributable  to  this 
fault  of  giving  real  existence  to  human  generalizations. 

The  Sermon  was  not  preached,  partly  because  of  the  long  interval  of 
many  months  which  intervened  before  the  opportunity  occurred  for  it ; 
and  partly  because,  in  the  meantime,  Mr.  Mansel,  in  the  6th  of  his 
"  Bampton  Lectures,"  had  sufficiently  investigated  the  subject  and 
preoccupied  the  ground. 


SERMON  III. 

DIVINE  BENEVOLENCE  IN  THE  ECONOMY  OF  PAIN. 

(PRKACHED  BEFORE  THE  UNIVERSITY,  FEBRUARY  13,  1859.) 


GENESIS  47  :  8,  9. 

*^And  Pharaoh  said  unto  Jacob,  IIoiv  old  art  thou?  And  Jacob  said  unto 
Fharaoh,  The  days  of  the  years  of  my  pilgrimage  are  an  hundred  and  thirty 
years:  few  and  evil  have  the  days  of  the  years  of  my  life  been,  and  have 
not  attained  unto  the  days  of  the  years  of  the  life  of  my  fathers  in  the  days 
of  their  pilgrimage. ' " 

These  words  record  a  scene  which  thought  might  well 
love  to  dwell  upon,  and  art  to  depict,  even  if  the  lesson  to 
be  learned  from  the  view  of  life  contained  in  them  were 
less  valuable  than  it  is. 

The  scene  is  a  striking  one, — the  interview  of  a  Hebrew 
shepherd,  chieftain  of  the  desert,  with  the  haughty  Pharaoh, 
monarch  of  the  first  empire  of  his  time.  It  carries  us  back 
to  an  age  of  the  world  which  it  is  hard  to  realize  in  thought, 
which  has  almost  left  no  traces  of  its  power  in  the  remains 
of  its  public  works,  and  seems  well-nigh  to  live  alone  in  the 
interesting  narrative  of  the  Book  of  Genesis.  We  are  ac- 
customed to  reproduce  to  ourselves  the  image  of  the  great- 
ness of  Egypt  by  reconstructing  in  our  minds,  and   re- 


ON    THE    ECONOMY    OF    PAIN.  »i5 

peopling  with  their  ancient  proprietors,  those  temple 
palaces  whose  gigantic  porches,  or  curious  columns,  or 
beauteouslj-graven  obelisks  still  adorn  the  banks  of  the 
Egyptian  stream.  Yet  all  these,  old  though  they  be,  are 
subsequent  to  the  age  of  Jacob.  In  order  to  conceive  of 
the  Egypt  which  Jacob  visited,  and  of  the  Pharaoh  to  whom 
Jacob  was  introduced,  we  must  go  back  in  thought  to  a 
time  still  older,  a  period  when  the  art  of  carving  obelisks 
and  of  erecting  porticos  was  yet  unknown,*  and  when  the 
people  passed  their  lives  in  houses  of  wood,  and  entombed 
their  ancestors  in  massive  pyramids,  which  outlive  the 
changes  of  nearly  forty  centuries.  Those  pyramids,  which 
now  look  down  in  gloomy  magnificence  on  the  desert 
scorched  into  barrenness  around  them,  around  whose 
massive  bases  hardly  a  sound  of  animate  life  is  now  heard 
to  break  the  everlasting  silence  of  the  desert  waste,  stood 
(it  is  now  understood  from  their  inscriptions,  in  spite  of  the 
opinion  of  the  Greek  historianf)  in  the  days  of  Jacob  as 
they  stand  now ;  and  if  we  measure  their  magnificence,  and 
then  strew  the  desert  plain  with  the  traces  of  active  industry 
and  the  bustle  of  a  thriving  population,  we  may  be  able  to 
form  to  ourselves  some  notion  of  the  scene  which  must  have 
presented  itself  to  that  patriarch  when  he  came  into  the 
country  over  which  his  son  Joseph  was  minister ;  we  can 

*  The  obelisks  and  porticos  chiefly  belong  to  the  great  age  of 
Egyptian  art  of  the  18th  and  19th  dynasties.  See  Fergusson's  ''Hand- 
book of  Architecture,"  vol.  i,  b.  v,  ch.  1,  2. 

t  Herodotus  (ii,  125)  attributes  the  erection  of  the  P^'ramids  to  a 
period  hardly  earlier  than  B.C.  1000.  The  monumental  evidence  shows 
that  they  were  the  work  of  the  4th  dynasty,  which,  according  to  the 
most  moderate  computation,  must  be  some  centuries  before  the  time 
of  Abraham,  See  Rawlinson's  "  Herodotus,"  vol.  ii,  ch.  8,  p.  344, 
&c. 


84  SERMON   III. 

reconstruct  from  these  fragments  some  idea  of  the  Egypt 
of  Jacob's  day. 

As  the  relics  of  Egyptian  architecture  enable  us  to  pic- 
ture to  ourselves  the  Pharaoh  who  %vas  one  of  the  charac- 
ters of  the  interview  narrated  in  our  text,  so  the  unchanging 
characteristics  of  the  shepherd  life  of  the  Arabian  and 
Mesopotamian  deserts  reproduce  to  us  the  external  features 
of  life  and  manners  of  the  Hebrew  patriarch  who  was 
ushered  into  the  Pharaoh's  presence.  We  can  imagine  to 
ourselves  the  bearing  of  the  shepherd  chieftain,  accustomed 
from  childhood  to  the  wandering  pastoral  life ;  his  head 
hoary  with  age ;  his  countenance  bronzed  with  exposure  to 
weather,  and  furrowed  in  deep  lines,  which  told  with  un- 
mistakable clearness  their  tale  of  hardship  and  trial ;  his 
manner  dignified  by  the  conscious  self-respect  which  be- 
longed to  one  who  had  long  been  the  chieftain  of  a  potent 
tribe,  carrying  the  modest  but  manly  consciousness  of  the 
liberty  of  a  child  of  the  desert,  even  in  the  servile  court  of 
the  Egyptian  autocrat. 

Such  is  the  scene.  The  city,  perhaps,  of  Memphis  ;  the 
court  of  a  Pharaoh,  surrounded  by  his  attendants  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  venerable  shepherd  patriarch  on  the 
other.  A  son  of  that  old  shepherd,  now  prime  minister 
of  the  Egyptian  kingdom,  himself  long  ago  transformed,  to 
all  appearance,  into  an  Egyptian,  in  every  respect,  save  in 
the  filial  affection  for  his  ancestry  which  still  throbbed 
within  him,  disdains  not  to  introduce  that  old  man  into  the 
sovereign's  presence.  Let  us  listen  to  the  interview : 
"  And  Joseph  brought  in  Jacob  his  father,  and  set  him 
before  Pharaoh,  and  Jacob  blessed  Pharaoh.  And  Pha- 
raoh said  unto  Jacob,  How  old  art  thou?  And  Jacob  said 
unto  Pharaoh,  The  days  of  the  years  of  my  pilgrimage  are 
an  hundred  and  thirty  years ;  few  and  evil  have  the  days  of 


ON   THE    ECONOMY   OF    PAIN.  85 

the  years  of  my  life  been,  and  have  not  attained  unto  the 
days  of  the  years  of  the  life  of  my  fathers  in  the  days  of 
their  pilgrimage.  And  Jacob  blessed  Pharaoh,  and  went 
out  from  before  Pharaoh." 

There  is  something  very  natural,  very  fresh,  in  the  words 
which  Jacob  used,  "  The  days  of  the  years  of  my  pilgrim- 
age." They  were  precisely  the  idea  of  life  which  would 
present  itself  to  one  accustomed  to  no  regular  home,  but 
wont  to  move  his  encampment  from  spot  to  spot  to  find 
pasturage  for  his  flocks  and  herds.  Life  would  seem  to 
him  eminently  "  a  pilgrimage,"  a  sojourn.  Also,  the  com- 
plaint, *'  Few  and  evil  have  the  days  of  the  years  of  my  life 
been,"  is  just  the  kind  of  plaintive,  melancholy  utterance 
of  an  aged  man,  with  life  behind  him,  a  scene  of  sorrow, 
and  nothing  but  death  and  gloom  before  him.  They  quite 
express  the  kind  of  regret  which  an  old  man  would  feel,  the 
retrospect  which  in  all  ages  a  thoughtful  mind  would  take 
of  its  past  life  ;  but  which  would  come  forth  especially  from 
a  man  like  Jacob,  whose  life  had  been  unusually  chequered 
with  evil, — evil  which  he  had  done,  evil  which  he  had  wit- 
nessed, evil  which  he  had  suffered.  And  we  can  well 
imagine  that  in  those  long  years  of  solitary  sorrow,  in 
which  he  had  mourned  the  entombment  of  his  earthly  hap- 
piness, when  he  had  buried  his  loved  Rachel  beneath  the 
pillar  in  Ramah,  and  the  sad  end,  as  he  supposed,  of  his 
son  Joseph,  one  of  the  two  children  which  we  learn  from 
the  narrative  seemed  to  him  the  relics  bequeathed  to  him 
from  their  lamented  mother,*  he  had  employed  the  leisure 
of  a  shepherd's  life  and  the  inactivity  of  age  in  the  sad  but 
serious  view  of  life  which  found  its  instinctive  utterance  in 
Pharaoh's   presence ;  when,  in   answer  to  the  monarch's 


86  SERMON  irr. 

question,  "  llow  old  art  thou?"  he  was  unable  to  reply 
without  leaving  on  record,  in  words  whose  plaintiveness 
touches  us  even  at  this  distance  of  time,  his  sad  experience 
of  human  life,  "  Few  and  evil  have  the  days  of  the  years 
of  my  life  been." 

We  have  now  dwelt,  I  should  hope,  long  enough  in 
thought  on  that  ancient  interview  to  realize  it  vividly  to 
ourselves,  and  to  enter  into  the  feeling  expressed  in  the 
utterance  of  the  aged  patriarch.  But  what  religious  and 
moral  lesson  may  we  learn  from  it  ?  The  one  which  I  wish 
to  draw  is  this,  to  fix  the  mind  on  that  idea  of  life  which 
Jacob  here  expressed.  In  his  retrospect  of  it,  evil  and 
sorrow  seemed  to  outweigh  joy  and  pleasure :  the  balance 
was  in  favor  of  gloom. 

How  completely  is  the  experience  of  life  which  the 
patriarch  draws  from  his  own  personal  history  confirmed 
to  us,  by  the  testimony  which  the  subsequent  history  of  the 
earth  has  unfolded  to  us ;  the  varied  events  of  woe  that 
have  arisen  in  the  development  of  the  world's  mighty 
drama  since  that  early  time  !  What  is  the  voice  of  history 
but  a  roll  written  within  and  without,  with  mourning, 
lamentation,  and  woe  ?  What  is  it  but  an  illustration  of 
the  great  fact,  that  Providence  allows  human  life  to  be 
marked  by  agonizing  sorrow  ?  How  many  evils  exist, 
brought  about  by  men, — wars,  revolutions,  cruelty?  How 
many  permitted  by  Heaven, — poverty,  famine,  disease, 
bodily  infirmities,  the  catastrophes  of  accidents,  sudden 
deaths?  What  can  more  truly  describe  the  feeling  of  the 
mind,  which  looks  upon  the  world's  history  from  this  point 
of  view,  than  to  exclaim  of  it  as  Jacob  did  of  his  own  life, 
"Evil  have  the  days  of  the  years  of  its  life  been  ?" 

Now,  what  is  the  cause  of  this  permitted  pain  ?  and  how 
can  the  existence  of  such  manifold  misery  be  reconciled 


ON    THE   ECONOMY   OF    PAIN.  87 

with  the  idea  of  a  benevolent  character  in  the  Divine 
Creator  ?  It  is  a  very  small  portion  of  this  great  subject 
which  can  come  under  our  notice  on  the  present  occasion  ; 
yet  I  hope  that  a  few  considerations  on  the  use  of  Pain 
will  at  once  excite  in  us  a  reverent  feeling  towards  the 
Divine  Being,  whose  government  we  shall  perceive  to  be 
guided  by  mercy,  even  in  its  forms  of  terror,  and  will  stir 
us  up  to  a  true  perception  of  our  own  duty  alike  to  our 
neighbors  and  to  Him. 

The  ideas  which  I  wish  to  bring  before  you  are  these, — 
that  though  we  cannot  entirely  fathom  the  mystery  which 
is  involved  in  God's  permission  of  pain  or  suffering,  yet  we 
can  discover  in  it  proofs  of  His  mercy,  not  merely  in  the 
very  purpose*  of  its  administration,  but  in  the  twofold 
remedy  which  He  has  provided  for  its  diminution,  in  the 
progress  of  civilization  and  in  the  mission  of  philanthropy 
and  of  Christianity. 

It  will  probably  occur  to  many  of  you,  that  pain  is  the 
effect  solely  of  sin,  and  therefore  that  whatever  woes  man- 
kind may  suffer  under  the  economy  of  it,  are  brought  on 
by  their  own  fault.  It  is  indeed  true  that  much  of  pain  is 
the  effect  of  sin,  and  would  never  have  existed  if  sin  had 
been  absent  from  the  earth ;  but  this  does  not  solve  the 
whole  mystery ;  for  there  is  much  pain,  it  is  now  clear, 
which  is  not  the  effect  of  sin.  The  economy  of  suffering  is 
a  far  grander  thing,  is  part  of  a  far  grander  scheme  of 
God's  administration,  than  we  are  at  first  led  to  suppose. 
Providence  has  shown  us,  by  the  discoveries  of  Science  in 

*  Similar  proofs  of  benevolent  arrangements  can  be  shown  in  the 
very  ?2a!f2«'e  of  its  distribution.  But  the  inquiry  was  too  physiological 
to  be  introduced  into  the  Sermon.  Mr.  G.  A.  Rowell,  of  Oxford,  has 
treated  this  particular  aspect  of  the  subject  in  an  interesting  essay  on 
"  The  Beneficent  Distribution  of  the  Sense  of  Pain." 


88  SERMON    III. 

the  present  century,  the  m^^sterious  fact,  which  we  should 
not  otherwise  have  suspected  or  guessed  at,  that  pain  and 
death  existed  before  the  creation  of  man, — before  the  ex- 
istence of  human  sin.* 

It  used  to  be  conceived  that,  about  six  thousand  years 
ago,  the  Almighty's  creative  fiat  first  broke  in  upon  the 
stillness  which  existed  in  universal  nature,  and  evoked  from 
nothingness  this  globe,  and  strewed  the  sky  with  the  orbs 
which  are  scattered  in  glittering  millions,  and  decked  this 
earth  with  plants,  and  peopled  it  w^ith  animals  for  the  use 
of  man.  It  is  now  known  that  this  opinion  is  not  correct, 
and  that  the  narrative  which  was  supposed  to  tell  us  so, 
can  at  most  refer  only  to  the  preparation  of  the  earth  for 
the  use  of  man,  and  not  to  its  original  construction.  The 
first  origin  of  creation  must  be  placed  back  at  a  period 
indefinitely  remote.  Through  a  succession  of  ages  and 
cycles,  the  profusion  of  God's  creative  hand  gave  life  to 
myriads  of  species  of  animals  and  plants  before  His  bound- 
less love  suggested  the  thought,  ''  Let  us  make  man  after 
our  image."  The  science  which  has  explored  the  rocks  of 
the  world  has  deciphered  in  them  the  written  history  of 
God's  government  of  this  planet  in  ages  upon  ages  anterior 
to  human  history.  The  whole  earth  is  one  huge  sepulchre 
of  the  remains  of  former  worlds.  The  marvellous  fact  upon 
which  I  am  wishing  now  to  dwell  is  this,  that  in  those  ages 
when  man  was  not,  and  when  the  fish  of  the  sea,  or  huge 
reptiles  of  the  marshes,  or  the  gigantic  mammoths  of  the 

*  It  will  be  observed  that  the  truth  of  the  teaching  of  geological 
theor}',  in  reference  to  the  occurrence  of  death  antecedently  to  the 
creation  of  man,  is  here  assumed.  Indeed  it  can  now  not  be  doubted 
by  any  educated  person.  A  note  is,  however,  appended  to  the  present 
Sermon,  to  dissipate  some  objections  which  are  still  taken  against  geo- 
lo^rical  science. 


ON    THE    ECONOMY   OF    PAIN.  89 

forest,  were  the  sole  lords  of  the  planet  which  now  forms 
man's  habitation ;  when  accordingly  there  was  no  sin,  be- 
cause the  irrational  animals  were  incapable  of  sinning,  yet 
pain  existed  there  and  death  likewise,*  and  those  great 
physical  catastrophes,  sucli  as  earthquake  and  volcanic 
eruptions,  which  destroy  animal  life,  were  also  abundant. f 

"  Though  we  may  rest  unhesitatingly  in  this  truth,  proved  by  irre- 
fragable evidence,  and  may  feel  sure  that  the  method  of  reconciling  it 
with  previously  known  truths  will  hereafter  suggest  itself,  yet,  as  many 
conscientious  men  feel  a  difficulty  in  accepting  it  in  consequence  of  its 
contradiction  both  to  St.  Paul's  statement  (in  Rom.  5  :  12),  "By  one 
man  sin  entered  into  the  world,  and  death  by  sin  ;  and  so  death  passed 
upon  all  men,  for  that  all  have  sinned ;"  and  to  the  statement  in  the 
Book  of  Genesis  (3  :  17),  "  Cursed  is  the  ground  for  thy  sake,"  it  seems 
fair  to  them  to  enumerate  some  of  the  modes  which  have  been  sug- 
gested for  the  reconciliation  of  the  discrepancy.  These  modes  are  by 
supposing:  (1st),  that  though  death  belonged  to  the  an wial 'kingdom 
before  the  existence  of  sin,  yet  its  extension  to  mankind  was  a  judgment 
for  human  sin;  (2d),  that  the  pre-existence  of  death  and  deterioration 
was  arranged  by  Providence,  with  a  view  to  the  future  existence  of 
human  sin,  foreseen  by  the  Divine  prescience ;  so  that  the  v/orld,  ac- 
cording to  this  view,  was  really  prearranged  for  the  residence  o^ fallen, 
not  o^ pure  beings, — an  idea  to  which  St.  Paul's  hint,  that  "the  Lamb 
was  slain  before  the  foundation  of  the  world,"  might  be  supposed  to 
■lend  countenance;  (3d),  that  as  St.  Paul  is  employing  a  process  of 
argumentation  in  the  passage  cited,  the  same  weight  of  inspiration 
need  not  reasonably  be  assigned  to  his  arguments  as  to  his  positive 
authoritative  statements  ;  inspiration,  according  to  this  view,  residing 
in  the  elevation  of  the  intuitional,  not  of  the  logical  faculty;  (4th),  that 
St.  Paul  may  be  regarded  as  merely  repeating  and  reasoning  on  the 
Jewish  view,  according  to  the  best  information  possessed  at  that  time, 
before  God  had  taught  to  man,  through  the  revelation  of  uninspired 
science,  a  grander  truth  on  this  subject  than  He  had  vouchsafed  to 
communicate  to  the  Jews  through  the  revelation  of  inspired  messen- 
gers. This  latter  view  would  not  deny  the  authority  of  Scripture,  but 
only  imply  degrees  of  inspiration  in  its  teaching. 

t  The  destruction  of  animal  life  by  earthcpiakes,  such  as  those  which 

8* 


90  SERMON    III. 

To  adduce  only  one  instance  as  proof.  In  many  spots  of 
the  earth  slabs  of  rock  are  dug  up  which  contain  the  re- 
mains of  delicate  fishes  which  existed  long  antecedently  to 
human  history  ;  their  beautiful  little  forms  being  stamped 
upon  them,  still  contorted  in  the  agonies  in  which  they 
expired.* 

What  do  these  facts  teach  us?  They  reveal  to  us  this 
amazing  truth,  that  the  economy  of  pain,  which  we  had 
thought  to  appertain  to  man,  and  to  be  the  effect  of  sin,  is 
part  of  a  much  larger  scheme  of  Divine  Providence,  ex- 
tending backwards  to  times  of  which  we  had  no  conception, 
and  designed  for  purposes  larger  than  we  had  imagined. 
Science  has  in  fact,  in  this  case,  become  a  revelation. f  It 
has  advanced  our  knowledge,  not  only  of  Nature,  but  of 
the  system  and  purposes  of  God  in  ruling  Nature ;  and  I 
have  ventured  thus  to  allude  to  it,  because  it  is  most  desir- 
able that  the  minds  of  our  students  should  be  freshened  by 
acquaintance  with  the  discoveries  of  Science,  and  that  they 

raised  mountains,  or  produced  the  dislocations  usually  called  "  faults," 
is  an  inference;  but  that  which  was  produced  by  volcanic  eruptions  is 
a  fact  proved  by  the  existence  of  molluscous  remains  in  the  tufa  of  vol- 
canoes of  the  tertiary  age,  both  in  central  Italy  and  in  Auvergne.  The 
existence  also  of  such  catastrophes  as  sudden  outbursts  of  poisonous 
vapor  in  the  ancient  seas,  is  the  most  probable  supposition  for  explain- 
ing the  aggregation  of  fossil  remains  of  the  same  family,  as  e.  g.  of 
Belemnites,  in  some  parts  of  the  Lias  ;  as  if  a  shoal  of  fish  had  been 
destroyed  by  some  sudden  cause  in  the  ocean,  and  entombed  in  its 
depths. 

*  Fossil  fishes  are  frequently  found  ;  but  it  is  in  the  remains  of  those 
discovered  at  Solenhofen,  in  Bavaria,  that  the  contortions  are  most 
distinctly  marked.  They  are  found  there  in  a  schistose  limestone, 
probably  cotemporary  with  the  upper  oolites  of  our  own  country.  See 
LyelFs  "  Manual  of  Geology,"  ch.  20. 

t  Compare  the  remarks  on  this  subject  in  Sermon  I  of  this  volume 
(pp.  43-48). 


ON    THE    ECONOMY    OF   PAIN.  91 

should  not  go  forth  into  life  to  propagate  errors  which  are 
exploded  among  the  educated,  nor  should  receive  the  first 
information  of  their  mistake  from  the  harsh  satire  of  some 
stubborn  critic.  Let  us  rather  hail  Science  as  a  handmaid 
to  religion.  The  inspired  Bible  is  the  revelation  of  God's 
scheme  of  mercy  in  Christ;  uninspired  Science  is  a  revela- 
tion of  God's  majesty  in  Nature,  surpassing  in  this  respect 
the  former,  in  unfolding  the  mightiness  of  His  ways,  and 
in  enlarging  our  conceptions  of  the  infinity  of  His  purposes. 
And,  therefore,  we  may  take  the  facts  to  which  I  have 
alluded,  as  a  proof  that  though  some  pain  is  doubtless  the 
effect  of  man's  sin,  yet  the  government  of  God  by  pain  is 
part  of  a  wider  scheme,  of  which,  perhaps,  we  can  hardly 
suspect  the  purpose. 

So  far  as  we  are  able  to  guess  at  its  object,  we  may 
assert  that  the  economy  of  pain  is  an  economy  of  discipline. 
It  appertains  to  a  being  that  is  in  a  state  of  progress  ;  and 
so,  instead  of  seeming  to  be  cruelty,  it  is  really  mercy, 
because  it  is  a  lesson  inculcating  prudence  and  inducing 
improvement.  Two  instances  will  illustrate  this.'''  If  the 
little  shell-fish  which  enjoys  its  life  in  the  warm  waters  of 
a  tropical  clime  possessed  no  sense  of  biting  pain  at  the 
presence  of  cold,  what  should  hinder  it  from  allowing  itself 
to  be  drifted  by  the  ocean's  currents  to  those  colder  waters 
for  which  its  organism  is  unsuited?  If  the  wild  beast  of 
the  forest  felt  no  sense  of  pain  as  its  hairy  skin  is  lacerated 
by  the  sharp  branches  of  trees  among  which  it  rushes,  what 
should  prevent  it  from  consummating  the  destruction  of 
the  very  covering  which  was  intended  to  protect  it  against 
alternations  of  climate  ?     The  endowment  of  pain  is  a  real 

^  These  two  instPtnces  are  borrowed  from  Mr.  Theodore  Parker's 
Sermons  on  the  "Economy  of  Pain."     (Sermons  IX  and  X) 


92  SERMON   HI. 

kindness ;  it  is  the  sentinel  to  warn  ngainst  danger.  If  it 
be  a  punishment,  it  is  only  intended  as  a  lesson  against 
future  imprudence,  against  the  recurrence  of  the  conduct 
which  produces  the  pain.  We  claim  it,  therefore,  as  a 
proof  of  God's  mercy  that  he  has  thus  imparted  to  sentient 
beings  a  beacon  to  warn  them  against  peril ;  and  we  can- 
not but  suppose  that  it  must  have  been  some  purpose  of 
this  kind,  which  was  intended  by  the  distribution  of  pain 
in  those  early  ages  of  creation  to  which  allusion  has  been 
made. 

We  might  extend  to  the  case  of  man  the  illustrations 
drawn  from  the  lower  orders  of  the  animal  kingdom. 
When,  however,  we  thus  pass  from  the  merely  sentient 
animals  to  the  consideration  of  beings  possessed  of  a  higher 
nervous  organization,  and  endowed  with  the  attributes  of 
reason,  conscience,  and  responsibility,  we  naturally,  as  we 
should  expect,  find  the  capacity  of  feeling  pain  to  be  vastly 
enhanced,  but  designed  with  the  same  purpose  of  mercy. 
For  the  pain  is  commensurate  with  the  discipline  ;  it  is  a 
signal  warning  against  harm  or  wrong  ;  and  as  the  disci- 
pline of  man  is  more  extended,  his  powers  greater,  his 
means  of  wrongly  acting  enlarged,  so  his  capacity  of  feel- 
ing pain  is  also  extended.  He  not  only  feels  it  in  body, 
but  experiences  the  pangs  of  mental  misery,  the  lashings  of 
remorse,  the  tortures  of  conscience.  Yet  these  are  mercy. 
They  are  all  designed  to  deter  from  the  repetition  of  the 
imprudence  or  the  sin  ;  they  arc  intended  as  a  warning  to 
others  who  see  the  effects,  that  they  may  learn  a  lesson  by 
example,  without  having  to  buy  instruction  through  their 
own  ex})crience. 

When  the  imprudence  of  a  mariner  dashes  the  vessel  on 
the  rocks,  or  when,  through  the  neglect  of  common  pre- 
cautions as  to  health,  a  pestilence  fastens  on  the  plngue- 


ON   THE    ECONOMY   OF    PAIN.  93 

spot  of  a  citj,  or  the  explosion  of  some  dangerous  factory 
maims  or  massacres  scores  of  unoffending  bystanders,  there 
seems  at  first  no  mercy  in  these  judgments  of  pain  inflicted 
on  the  innocent ;  but  when  we  consider  what  lessons  they 
are  intended  to  teach,  they  too  are  in  their  tendencies 
really  mercy.  It  is  only  severe  lessons  like  these  which 
arouse  men  from  a  motive  of  personal  safety  to  remedy  the 
evils  which  imprudence  or  neglect  has  created.  Thus,  even 
in  chastisement  there  is  mercy  ;  even  in  the  dark  and 
mysterious  economy  of  pain  there  is  proof  that  a  God  of 
love  is  ruling. 

Yet  the  remarks  which  have  been  made  apply  only  to 
that  pain  and  suffering  which  is  remedial ;  what  shall  be 
said  of  the  amount  of  suffering  permitted  in  God's  provi- 
dence, which  comes  upon  man  by  no  fault  of  his  own,  and 
which  he  is  powerless  to  avert  ?  A  city  lies  sparkling  in 
beauty :  suddenly  a  low  rumble  is  heard ;  it  grows  louder 
as  it  approaches;  and  when  it  is  at  hand,  the  city  rocks 
like  a  ship  laboring  in  a  storm ;  the  buildings  crumble  into 
heaps ;  and  the  glorious  city,  which  a  few  minutes  before 
w^as  busy  and  bright  with  life,  is  a  mass  of  ruins,  with 
thousands  of  its  population  buried  in  its  fall.  The  patient 
mariners,  after  braving  many  a  danger,  are  in  sight  of  the 
haven  where  they  would  be  ;  but  a  storm  of  the  ocean  over- 
takes them ;  the  vessel  founders ;  and  their  last  breath  of 
agony  is  heard  gurgling  on  the  surface  of  the  deep  as  they 
sink  into  its  abyss.  The  toiling  collier  shall  be  digging  in 
his  subterranean  city:  some  accident  ignites  the  inflam- 
mable gas  which  issues  forth  from  the  coal-rock ;  the  flame 
sweeps  with  devouring  rush  through  the  close  galleries  of 
the  mine,  and  strews  those  dark  caves  with  the  corpses  of 
innocent  sufferers.  The  Divine  Being  is  pleased  not  to 
suspend  His  general  laws  ;  and  the  general  law  that,  under 


94  SERMON   III. 

certain  circumstances,  the  earthquake,  or  the  shipwreck, 
or  the  explosion  shall  occur,  is  mysteriously  allowed  to  have 
its  course.  The  contingency  comes,  the  law  holds  on  its 
course,  and  the  catastrophe  is  the  consequence.*  What 
shall  we  say  of  these  permitted  horrors?  Can  we  reconcile 
them  with  the  idea  of  the  government  of  a  God  of  love  ? 
We  can  in  some  sense  do  so, — at  least  so  far  as  we  finite 
beings  can  hope  to  comprehend  the  thoughts  of  the  Infinite 
Mind.  We  assert  that  benevolence  is  seen  on  the  large 
scale  even  here;  we  claim  that  the  government  by  a  uni- 
form system  of  general  laws  is  itself  an  act  of  benevolence. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  enlarge  on  this  subject,  because, 
on  a  former  occasion,  I  endeavored  to  harmonize  the  appa- 
rent severity  of  such  a  plan  of  government  with  the  idea 
of  benevolence ;  and,  with  the  view  of  showing  that  the 

amazing  wisdom  exhibited  in  its  construction  is  itself  kind- 
is 

ness,  I  drew  an  illustration  from  some  of  the  discoveries  of 
mathematical  astronomy. f  I  attempted  to  make  it  plain, 
that  through  calculations  conducted  by  the  instrument  of  a 
refined  analysis  we  arrive  at  this  marvellous  result,  that  the 
Divine  Being  has  impressed  a  simple  law  of  such  exquisite 
perfection  upon  the  heavenly  bodies,  that  He  has  by  means 
of  it  anticipated  the  contingencies  which  will  occur  in  their 
disturbances  in  the  inconceivably  distant  depths  of  future 
time.  Are  not  such  consummate  wisdom  and  prescience  a 
manifest  proof  that  the  government  by  general  laws  is  an 
act  of  benevolence  ?  The  amazing  wisdom  is  itself  the 
benevolence.  Thus,  though  we  cannot  understand  the 
whole  mystery  of  these  catastrophes  which  arise  in  the  ope- 
ration of  such  a  plan  of  administration,  we  may  be  sure 

*  The  ideas  of  the  last  few  lines  arc  repeated  from  Sermon  II. 
t  See  Sermon  II,  p.  75. 


ON    THE    ECONOMY    OF    PAIN.  1)5 

that  general  happiness  is  produced  by  the  arrangement,  in 
spite  of  occasional  pain.  The  earthquake,  or  the  ship- 
wreck, or  the  explosion,  produces  misery,  but  the  general 
system  of  wind  and  weather,  and  gas  and  air,  diffuses 
general  enjoyment;  and  therefore,  even  apart  from  their 
moral  value  as  lessons,  even  on  the  physical  ground  merely, 
we  can  show  that  undeserved  pain  is  compatible  with  the 
administration  of  a  God  of  love.  The  means  are  severe, 
but  the  end  is  beneficent.  ^'Therefore,  hearken  unto  me, 
ye  men  of  understanding  ;  far  be  it  from  God  that  he  should 
do  wickedness ;  and  from  the  Almighty  that  he  should 
commit  iniquity.  Yea,  surely  God  will  not  do  wickedly, 
neither  will  the  Almighty  pervert  judgment." 

We  have  thus  learned  in  the  survey  alike  of  the  pain 
which  is  a  warning  to  deter  from  harm,  and  of  that  which 
is  permitted  to  occur  in  the  ordinary  operations  of  Nature's 
laws,  that  even  the  dark  dispensations  are  an  equal  proof 
of  God's  love  with  the  brightest,  that  even  the  mysterious 
economy  of  pain  is  an  evidence  of  God's  benevolence.* 

But  we  have  not  yet  exhausted  the  proof  of  God's  mercy 
in  this  dispensation  of  severity.  We  have,  indeed,  seen  its 
benevolent  purpose  and  tendency ;  but  we  should  also  take 
into  account  that  God  has  been  pleased  to  institute  two 
agencies  which  especially  tend  to  diminish  pain,  and  make 
it  effect  the  moral  purpose  designed  in  it.  One  of  these 
agencies  is  the  benevolence  which  is  called  forth  by  civiliza- 

■^  Pain  seems  to  be  various  in  origin.  (1),  It  arises  from  the  ope- 
ration of  general  laws;  (2),  it  is  corrective  ;  (3),  it  is  designed  to  test 
character,  as  in  the  case  of  Job ;  (4),  it  is  perhaps  occasionally  retribu- 
tive. The  two  former  branches  only  have  been  discussed  above.  Some 
hints  for  the  discussion  of  the  third  may  be  found  in  an  able  article  on 
the  Book  of  Job  in  the  "Westminster  Review  for  October,  1853. 


96  SERMON    III. 

tion ;  the  other,  the  philanthropy  which  takes  its  rise  in 
Christianity. 

It  may  create  a  momentary  surprise  to  hear  of  the  relief 
of  pain  being  the  effect  of  civilization  ;  for  experience  so 
often  compels  us  rather  to  associate  the  idea  of  selfishness 
with  that  acquisition  of  wealth  which  marks  a  growing 
civilization,  and  heartsickening  despotism  with  political 
centralization.  Yet  we  shall  perceive  that  it  is  so,  if  w^e 
look  at  two  features  which  appertain  to  civilization,  viz., 
the  development  of  medical  science,  and  the  growth  of 
public  opinion.  It  would  be  so  easy  to  prove  from  history 
that  the  increase  of  civilization  has  favored,  nay,  necessi- 
tated the  growth  of  medical  science,  that  we  may  assume 
the  fact;  for  my  object  now  is  rather  to  regard  the  art  of 
healing  as  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  Providence  for 
the  alleviation  of  pain.  We  are  accustomed  frequently  to 
take  only  a  utilitarian  view  of  it;  when,  however,  we  re- 
gard it  from  our  present  point  of  view,  we  must  look  upon 
the  humblest  practitioner,  in  his  humblest  employment,  as 
an  unconscious  instrument  in  erecting  one  stone  in  the 
great  temple,  which  God  is  building,  of  human  happiness 
and  human  improvement.  And  we  must  also  look  upon 
the  remedies  which  have  been  of  such  inestimable  blessings 
to  mankind,  such  as  the  febrifuge  power  of  Peruvian  bark, 
the  practice  of  vaccination,  the  use  of  anaesthetics,  though 
in  themselves,  as  it  were,  accidental  discoveries,  yet  in  a 
higher  sense  as  gifts  of  God,  as  merciful  arrangements  of 
His  Providence  for  the  mitigation  of  suffering.  Though 
they  be  fortuitous  discoveries,  yet  if  it  be  the  special  pre- 
rogative of  human  civilization  to  acquire  such  knowledge, 
and  if  it  be  the  inseparable  quality  which  God  has  given  to 
man  to  attain  to  civilization,  w^e  are  not  wrong  in  claiming 
them  as  evidences  of  the  government  of  a  God  of  love. 


ON    THE    ECONOMY    OF    PAIN.  97 

We  may  see  a  similar  proof  also,  if  we  look  at  the  trait 
of  a  mature  civilization  which  is  seen  in  the  growth  of  public 
opinion,  and  its  necessary  concomitant,  a  free  press.  If 
we  turn  our  thoughts  to  the  state  of  our  own  country  at 
this  moment,  we  perceive  that  there  is  not  a  wrong,  nor  a 
supposed  wrong  of  the  most  insignificant  kind,  which  fails 
to  excite  through  the  free  press  of  England,  public  atten- 
tion and  sympathy.  The  event  may  be  in  itself  slight, 
yet  it  is  felt  not  to  be  a  trifle,  because  it  involves  a  princi- 
ple. It  may  be  some  bodily  hurt  of  a  poor  person,  or  it 
may  be  some  insidious  attempt  to  obstruct  public  progress, 
or  to  sap  the  foundation  of  our  liberty  and  our  national 
independence ;  in  either  case  Englishmen  take  it  up,  be- 
cause they  feel  that  the  trouble  is  theirs.  If  the  one  mem- 
ber suffer,  they  know  that  all  the  members  suffer.  The 
hurt  at  one  extreme  limb  of  the  body  politic  is  telegraphed 
throughout  the  whole  of  its  mysterious  organism,  and  each 
sinew  and  each  nerve  beats  responsive  to  the  pain  impressed 
on  the  distant  member.  The  very  exaggeration,  the  oc- 
casional abuse  of  this  public  sympathy,  proves  its  power 
and  its  value.  If  here,  again,  we  see  that  public  sympathy 
is  the  effect  of  freedom,  and  freedom  the  effect  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  civilization  the  gift  of  God's  general  providence, 
let  us  not  omit  to  recognize  in  every  act  of  sympathy  which 
responds  to  the  complaints  of  suffering,  the  pulsations  of 
the  personal  will,  the  expression  of  the  mind  of  love,  which 
directs  the  first  links  of  that  chain,  some  of  whose  windings, 
as  we  see  them  in  the  tangled  mass  of  human  society,  we 
have  been  attempting  to  trace. 

Yet  it  is  not  merely  in  the  benevolence  of  a  growing 
civilization  that  we  notice  the  merciful  arrangements  of 
Heaven  for  the  mitigation  of  pain  ;  we  trace  it  much  more 
in  the  mission  of  Christianity.     Our  holy  religion   is   the 

*) 


98  SERMON    III. 

reflection  of  the  mission  of  its  Divine  author ;  lie  has  left 
us  an  example  that  we  should  follow  in  His  steps :  and  His 
mission  was  one  of  universal  mercy,  not  to  soul  only  but 
to  body.  In  His  journeyings  over  Judea,  wherever  He  saw 
misery,  physical  as  well  as  moral.  He  scattered  it  by  the 
breath  of  His  miraculous  power.  He  bore  our  sickness, 
and  carried  our  sorrows.  And  as  He  acted  so  did  also 
His  Apostles.  From  the  very  moment  when  their  souls 
were  baptized  with  the  Pentecostal  gifts,  so  that  they  un- 
derstood what  Christ's  atoning  death  had  wrought  for  them, 
and  felt  the  holy  love  of  God  and  of  man  stirred  up  within 
them  by  His  Holy  Spirit,  they  hastened  to  go  forth  on 
their  mission  of  love.  And  not  Apostles  only,  but  humble 
members  of  the  Christian  Church  counted  it  their  highest 
privilege  to  minister  to  their  fellows.  So  also,  as  the  circles 
of  Christian  influence  widened,  institutions  unthought  of  by 
heathens,  were  established  for  the  relief  of  sorrow  and  the 
mitigation  of  suff'ering.  The  statesmen  and  monarchs  of 
the  ancient  w^orld  constructed  many  works  of  public  utility, 
but  none  directly  adapted  to  the  cure  of  disease.  The 
ruins  of  their  aqueducts  still  span  wide  valleys  with  their 
gigantic  arches ;  their  baths  for  the  poor,"^  now  crumbling 
in  ruined  majesty,  form  some  of  the  most  collossal  and 
beautiful  remains  of  the  Eternal  City ;  but  no  philosopher 
was  ever  led  by  his  science,  no  statesman  by  his  generosity, 
to  construct  hospitals,  or  a  cystem  of  relief  for  the  diseased. 
It  was  when  He  who  had  suff'ered  as  a  man  sent  His  Spirit 
down  to  melt  the  hard  hearts  of  men  into  overflowing  love, 
that  the  thoughts  of  visiting  and  assisting  the  sick  first 
entered  into  the  hearts  of  men  to  conceive. 

And  in  various  ages  the  most  conspicuous  examples  of 

*  E.  (/.  those  of  CaraciUla  and  Dioelelian. 


ON    THE    ECONOMY    OF    PAIN.  99 

heroic  and  enduring  self-sacrifice  have  appeared  in  the 
muster-roll  of  those  who  have  endeavored  to  carry  out  the 
secular  mission  of  Christianity — its  relief  of  pain.  We 
need  not  go  back  to  past  times,  and  recall  the  memory  of 
a  Borromeo  ministering  to  the  population  of  Milan  when 
smitten  by  pestilence,  nor  a  Vincent  de  Paul  sending  forth 
the  missionary  sisters  into  ravaged  Lorraine,  nor  a  Howard, 
in  his  circumnavigation  of  charity,  collating  the  distresses 
of  all  men.  Our  own  age,  our  own  memory,  will  supply  to 
us  conspicuous  instances  where  practical  Christianity  has 
fulfilled  its  mission  of  plunging  into  the  infection  of  hos- 
pitals, and  diving  into  the  abodes  of  sorrow.  There  is  one 
recent  scene  in  our  national  history  which  finds  its  place 
in  the  annals  of  the  Christian  mission  of  mercy  ;  there  is 
one  spot  on  earth  whither  the  philanthropist  may  take  a 
pilgrimage  to  kindle  his  own  energies.  And  as  he  gazes 
on  the  hillocks  which  mark  the  last  resting-place  of  English 
heroes,  and  drops  his  tear  of  sympathy  to  the  memory  of 
those  who  bought  with  their  lives  the  noble  prize  of  victory 
for  the  country  which  they  loved  so  well,  his  sympathy 
must  kindle  into  intense  energy  as  he  turns  to  gaze  on  that 
huge  square  edifice  that  overlooks  the  silent  cemetery, 
W'hich  has  been  consecrated  by  the  presence  of  those  Chris- 
tian heroines  who  bent  over  the  pillow  and  soothed  the 
last  moments  of  their  countrymen  who  expired  in  the 
plague-struck  hospital  of  Scutari. 

Here  we  may  see  how  truly  Christianity  still  carries  out 
its  mission  of  healing ;  and  in  the  spirit  of  this  example  we 
may  fitly  conclude  our  subject :  for  we  have  traced  in  the 
economy  of  pain  the  proof  of  God's  benevolence,  not  only 
in  the  suffering  which  is  the  punishment  of  imprudence, 
and  in  that  which  comes  upon  us  without  our  own  fault, 
but  also  in  the  perpetual  system  which  He  has  provided  for 


100  SERMON    III. 

the  mitigation  of  sorrow  in  the  benevolence  of  civilization 
and  the  philanthropic  mission  of  Christianity. 

Nor  can  this  view  have  failed  to  exhibit  to  us  our  own 
duty  alike  to  our  neighbors  and  to  ourselves.  We  must 
have  felt  that  in  mitigating  the  slightest  pain  in  the  most 
insignificant  creature  of  God's  sentient  creation,  we  are  co- 
workers with  God,  we  are  doing  our  part  in  the  system  in 
which  He  has  placed  us ;  in  diminishing  human  suffering  in 
the  least  degree,  or  adding  to  the  stock  of  human  happi- 
ness, we  are  following  the  footsteps  of  Him  who  Himself 
was  the  great  example  of  the  dignity  of  condescension,  of 
the  majesty  of  sympathy,  of  the  divinity  of  pity. 

It  is  a  very  cheering  circumstance  that  the  Christianity 
of  our  age  is  becoming  awake  to  this  its  secular  mission, — 
its  mission  to  the  bodies  of  men  as  well  as  to  their  souls,  its 
mission  of  civilization  as  well  as  its  errand  of  religion.  It 
was  the  lesson  of  this  kind  which  all  felt  that  they  had  to 
learn,  which  not  long  since  bespoke  the  sympathies  of 
admiring  England  for  the  labors  of  the  missionary  ex- 
plorer,* who,  after  receiving  from  his  grateful  countrymen 
his  well-merited  honors,  has  gone  back  with  the  unaffected 
simplicity  which  was  the  sweetest  trait  in  his  noble  cha- 
racter, to  bestow  his  labor  of  love  in  carrying  up  the 
streams  of  the  African  continent  the  seeds  of  incipient 
civilization,  as  the  pioneer  of  industry,  the  harbinger  of  the 
bright  day  of  improvement  which  shall  in  distant  time 
spread  its  refreshment  over  the  arid  plains  of  the  African 
continent.  When  that  first  laborer  shall  have  passed  to 
his  reward  (distant,  God  grant,  may  be  the  day),  his  name 
shall  be  blessed ;  though  he  may  rest  from  his  labors,  his 
works  shall  follow  him. 

^  The  Rev.  D.  Liviii'?stone. 


ON  THE  ECONOMY  OF  PAIN.  101 

But  his  example  ought  to  animate  us  at  home.  For  if 
we  would  find  barbarians  outside  of  the  pale  of  civilization, 
and  beings  degraded  below  the  level  of  humanity,  we  have 
no  need  to  go  to  search  for  them  among  the  roving  Bos- 
jemen  of  the  Calahari  desert,'''  we  may  find  them  nearer 
home,  in  the  crowded  English  cities,  amid  the  lazzaroni  of 
our  metropolis,  amid  the  hopeless,  homeless  outcasts  of  yon 
great  London.  And  if  we  would  reach  these  with  mercy, 
we  must  first  feed  them ;  if  we  would  Christianize  them,  we 
must  first  unbrutalize  them ;  if  we  would  reach  their  souls, 
we  must  begin  with  their  bodies ;  if  we  would  hope  to  teach 
them  religion,  we  must  accompany  it  or  precede  it  by  atten- 
tion to  public  health  and  comfort.  Tracts,  and  Bibles,  and 
clergy  will  do  little,  unless  vfe  afford  also  fresh  air,  and 
clean  water,  and  wholesome  food,  and  warm  fuel,  and 
healthful  recreation,  and  the  commonest  rudiments  of  God's 
blessed  gift  of  civilization.  We  must  sacrifice  for  once 
those  political  practices  (true  though  they  are  in  the  main) 
which  the  teaching  of  Malthus  caused  to  be  embodied  in 
public  law;  we  must  come  forward  as  a  nation  to  help  those 
who  cannot  and  will  not  help  themselves.  We  must  purify 
the  public  drainage,  and  erect  public  lavatories,  and  build 
decent  cottages  wherein  the  sanctities  of  domestic  life  may 
find  a  shrine,  without  the  herding  together  of  persons,  like 
brute  beasts,  without  respect  of  age,  or  person,  or  sex,  if 
we  would  wish  to  use  God's  method  of  elevating  men,  or 
would  desire  our  religious  efforts  for  their  good  to  be  any- 
thing but  a  mighty,  heart-sickening  mockery. f 

"  Livingstone's  ^'  Travels,"  cli.  5. 

t  It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  under  ordinary  circumstances  Chris- 
tianity precedes  rather  than  succeeds  civilization.  Religion  begins 
from  within  and  works  outwards,  first  making  the  heart  right,  and  then 
afterwards  the  life.     Missions  civilize  by  the  very  act  of  Christianizing. 

9* 


102  SERMON   III. 

Yet  ^vhile  we  are  learning  this  lesson  of  duty  to  our 
neif^hbor,  let  us  not  omit  to  learn  also  one  in  reference  to 
ourselves.  While  we  are  laboring  in  our  sphere  to  diminish 
human  sorrow  as  well  as  human  sin,  let  us  not  fail  to  realize 
the  deep  lesson  which  the  sight  of  that  sorrow  ought  to 
teach  us,  of  unworldliness  and  of  preparation  for  the  future 
world.  Let  us  not  fail  to  feel  that  this  life  is  verily  a  pil- 
grimage, a  sojourn ;  that  we  are  placed  here  to  seize  the 
few  moments  to  prepare  ourselves  for  another  world,  and 
that  the  evil  of  this  life  may  be  our  very  best  preparation 
for  the  future,  if  only  we  are  victorious  through  the  help 
of  Him  who  has  loved  us.  We  must  learn  to  feel  that  here 
all  is  fleeting,  there  all  eternal ;  here  the  shadow,  there  the 
substance;  here  the  dream,  there  the  awaking;  here  all 
marred  and  imperfect,  and  unable  to  satisfy  the  deep 
cravings  of  our  immortal  souls,  there  all  blessed  perfection, 
and  God  and  goodness  as  the  everlasting  fountain  and  satis- 
faction of  our  intenscst  appetitions.  Then  we  shall  use  the 
world  without  abusing  it,  and  live  here  as  heirs  of  immor- 
tality. And  the  strength  of  that  conviction  will  make  us 
tremble,  lest,  when  we  have  entered  on  that  other  state  of 
being,  when  return  to  this  life  is  impossible,  when  our  souls 
are  stamped  with  an  everlasting  destiny,  when  he  that  is 
unholy  must  be  unholy  still,  we  should  find  that  we  have 
made  an  everlasting  mistake,  that  we  have  allowed  our- 
selves to  be  cheated  by  the  dream  of  life,  hurried  away  by 
its  gaieties,  bound  down  by  its  business,  and  have  neglected 
to  use  its  opportunities  to  secure  a  fitness  for  a  home  above. 
Let  us  learn  this  lesson,  and  carry  it  out  in  our  lives. 
AVhile  we  consecrate  our  efforts  to  bless  our  fellows,  let  us 

But  ill  extreme  cases  of  degradation,  such  as  abound  in  our  larger 
towns,  religious  influences  arc  rendered  abortive  unless  assisted  by 
civilization. 


ON  THE  ECONOMY  OF  PAIN.  103 

gather  ourselves  in  the  secrecy  of  earnest  prayer  to  our 
common  Father,  and  seek  that  He  would  keep  before  our 
souls  the  vision  of  the  eternal  world,  and  make  our  lives  the 
means  of  preparing  us  for  it.  Let  us  ask  the  mercy  which 
is  free  as  the  air  we  breathe  to  all  who  ask  it  in  the  merits 
of  Christ,  let  us  crave  His  help  against  sin,  and  His  favor, 
which  no  one  ever  yet  asked  in  vain.  Then,  if  we  do  so, 
we  may  well  hope  that,  as  the  evening  of  life  closes  around 
us,  and  we  are  ready  to  lament  with  the  ancient  patriarch, 
"  Few  and  evil  have  been  the  days  of  the  years  of  my  life," 
we  shall,  in  the  recollection  of  a  life  well  spent,  catch  a 
prospect  in  the  future,  a  bright  home  beyond  the  dark 
valley  of  the  shadow  of  death ;  and  that  with  consolation 
cheering  us  such  as  fell  upon  him  in  his  last  moments,  our 
souls  may  pass  away  from  earth  with  the  joyous  thought, 
"I  have  waited  for  thy  salvation,  0  Lord." 

"Life,  I  repeat,  is  energy  of  love, 
Divine  or  human  ;  exercised  in  pain, 
In  strife,  or  tribulation  ;  and  ordained, 
If  so  approved  and  sanctified,  to  pass 
Through  shades,  and  silent  rest,  to  endless  joy.''^ 


NOTE 

On  the  Evidence  of  Gcolorju. 

It  is  hardly  necessary,  considering  the  manner  in  which  a  knowledge 
of  Geological  discovery  now  enters  into  the  education  of  all  cultivated 
persons,  to  add  remarks  on  the  irrefragable  character  of  the  evidence 
of  those  discoveries ;  yet  some  objections  to  them  deserve  notice,  which 

*  Wordsworth's  "  Excursion,"  b.  v,  end. 


104  SERMON    III. 

exist  in  the  minds  of  those  whose  reverence  for  old  truths  inclines  them 
to  adopt  any  excuse  for  declining  to  accept  new  ones. 

These  objections  are  (1st),  that  the  phenomena  of  fossil  remains  can 
be  entirely  explained  by  a  general  deluge,  without  assuming  the  exist- 
ence of  death  antecedently  to  the  creation  of  man;  and  (2d),  that 
Geology  is  so  young  a  science,  and  has  so  often  changed  its  theories, 
that  hesitation  in  accepting  its  present  teaching  is  excusable. 

The  former  position  cannot  be  held  any  longer  by  any  one  who  will 
put  himself  to  the  trouble  of  examining  conscientiously  the  steps  of 
Geological  proof;  indeed,  the  persons  who  in  future  assert  it  must 
abdicate  their  claim  both  to  impartiality  and  intelligence. 

The  latter  position,  though  more  plausible,  is  equally  fallacious.  The 
cause  why  Geology  has  changed  its  theories  is,  that  the  discoverers  of 
the  science  were  so  conscientious,  so  afraid  to  draw  inferences  hastily 
which  would  clash  with  received  beliefs,  so  unwilling  to  admit  the  new 
truths  which  God  was  teaching  them  through  the  revelation  of  Science, 
that  they  adopted  premature  attempts  to  adjust  old  beliefs  to  new  dis- 
coveries. Accordingly,  from  time  to  time  they  were  compelled  to  throw 
away  some  element  in  their  conclusions,  which  fresh  investigations 
showed  to  be  no  longer  tenable.  The  changes  in  the  theories  of  Geo- 
logists have  not  been  those  of  men  who  were  guessing  at  random  ;  they 
have  been  the  uniform  progress  of  minds  who  had  humility  enough  to 
lay  aside  their  preconceived  hypotheses  before  the  newly-opening  visions 
of  truth. 

In  reference  to  the  allegation  that  Geology  is  a  young  science,  it 
should  be  remembered  that  since  the  establishment  of  ascertained 
methods  of  investigation  and  of  proof,  a  science  constructed  upon  such 
methods  possesses  immediately  the  certainty  of  older  sciences,  the  larger 
portion  of  the  history  of  which  has  only  been  the  random  attempts  at 
discovery,  which  were  made  antecedently  to  the  establishment  of  correct 
methods.*  Bacon  said  that  the  method  of  science  would  grow  together 
with  the  scienceSjt — a  remark  which  experience  has  confirmed.  Men 
have,  as  it  were,  stumbled  upon  discoveries,  and  having  done  so,  they 
have  turned  back  and  read  in  those  discoveries  the  theory  of  the  method 
by  which  they  attained  them.     They  have  read  in  science  the  logical 

*  This  is  cxliibited  clearly  in  Dr.  Whewell's  "  Philosoi-yhy  of  the  Inductive 
Sciences,'"  in  the  chapters  where  he  traces  the  gradual  evolution  of  scientific 
ideas;  and  in  Profe.ssor  Baden  Powell's  "History  of  Natural  Philosophy." 

jNov.  Org.  B.  I.,  infiu. 


ON    THE    ECONOMY    OF    PAIN.  105 

method  of  scientific  discovery,  and  hence  the  modern  inductive  logic  of 
scientific  method,  as  shown  in  the  great  modern  writers  on  the  subject,* 
is  itself  a  strictly  inductive  science,  a  rigorous  statement  of  the  methods 
which  have  led  to  the  verified  discoveries  in  the  sciences. 

Hence  the  allegation  that  Geology  is  an  uncertain  science,  because  a 
new  one,  disappears,  inasmuch  as  it  is  a  science  founded  on  ascertained 
methods ;  indeed,  such  a  charge  is  as  absurd  as  if  a  person  were  to 
object  against  some  modern  astronomical  calculation  that  it  has  been 
executed  too  quickly,  because  the  astronomers  who  lived  before  the 
perfection  of  analytical  methods  of  investigation  would  have  taken 
much  longer  time  in  the  discovery  of  it. 

*Sir  J.Herschel's  "  Introd.  toNat.  Phil.,"  Part  II;  Dr.  Whewell's  "  Philos. 
of  Induction;"  Ampere's  "  Essai  sur  la  Philosophie  des  Sciences;"  Comte's 
"Positive  Philosophy;"  Mr,  J.  S.  Mill's  "System  of  Logic," 


SERMON    IV. 

JEWISH  INTERPRETATION  OF  PROPHECY. 

(PREACHED  BEFORE  THE  UNIVERSITY,  FEBRUARY  24,  1856.*) 


ISAIAH    6:9. 

"And  he  said,  Go,  and  tell  this  people,  Hear  ye  indeed,  but  understand 
not;  and  see  ye  indeed,  hut  perceive  not^ 

These  words  were  spoken  in  the  marvellous  vision  which 
was  vouchsafed  to  Isaiah  at  an  early  stage  of  his  prophetic 
ministry.  In  the  year  that  King  Uzziah  died,  he  saw  "the 
Lord  sitting  upon  a  throne,  high  and  lifted  up,  and  his 
train  filled  the  temple.  Above  it  stood  the  seraphim  ;  each 
one  had  six  wings  :  with  twain  he  covered  his  face,  and  with 
twain  he  covered  his  feet,  and  with  twain  he  did  fly.  And 
one  cried  unto  another  and  said,  Holy,  holy,  holy  is  the 
Lord  of  Hosts  ;  the  whole  earth  is  full  of  his  glory.  And 
the  posts  of  the  door  moved  at  the  voice  of  him  that  cried, 
and  the  house  was  filled  with  smoke."  We  cannot  wonder 
that  the  prophet,  confounded  with  that  unearthly  mani- 
festation,  was    overwhelmed   with   dread,    and    exclaimed, 

*  On  occasion  of  the  annual  Sermon,  designed  to  refute  the  medicEval 
Jewish  schools  of  prophetic  interpretation. 


ON   JEWISH    LITERATURE.  107 

"Woe  is  me,  for  I  am  undone,  because  I  am  a  man  of  un- 
clean lips,  and  I  dwell  in  the  midst  of  a  people  of  unclean 
lips."  But  as  he  uttered  his  confession,  one  of  the 
seraphims  flew  unto  him,  having  a  live  coal  in  his  hand, 
taken  from  the  altar,  and  laid  it  upon  his  mouth,  and  said, 
"  Lo,  this  hath  touched  thy  lips,  and  thy  iniquity  is  taken 
away  and  thy  sin  purged."  And  then  he  was  warned  to 
go  and  tell  his  nation,  "  Hear  ye  indeed,  but  understand 
not ;  and  see  ye  indeed,  but  perceive  not.  Make  the  heart 
of  this  people  fat,  and  make  their  ears  heavy,  and  shut 
their  eyes ;  lest  they  see  with  their  eyes,  and  hear  with 
their  ears,  and  understand  with  their  heart,  and  convert, 
and  be  healed." 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  was  a  vision  sent  at  once 
to  cheer  the  prophet  in  his  work,  and  to  prepare  him  for  it. 
He  was  to  go  to  teach  his  countrymen ;  but  Providence 
foresaw  that  they,  with  the  inflexible  tenacity  of  character 
which  has  ever  been  their  marked  national  peculiarity, 
would  refuse  to  listen  to  his  message ;  and,  therefore,  he 
was  given  to  feel  that  his  ministrations,  though  they  were 
not  heeded  on  earth,  were  not  unnoticed  in  heaven ;  that 
unclean  as  he  was,  and  ministering  to  a  people  unclean, 
there  was  a  seraph  to  fly  to  him  with  the  assurance  of 
mercy;  and  that  though  he  might  be  led  to  think  that  the 
course  of  this  world's  history  was  for  evil,  yet  the  seraphim 
standing  before  the  throne,  and  surveying  things  by  the 
light  of  eternity,  were  chanting  their  song  of  triumph  to 
the  Holy,  Holy,  Holy,  because  they  were  permitted  to 
witness  that  not  the  heavens  only,  but  the  earth  also,  was 
full  of  God's  glory. 

The  history  of  Isaiah's  ministrations  to  the  Jewish  peo- 
ple, has  been  repeated  in  every  succeeding  attempt  made 
to  bring  them  to  a  sense  of  their  true  condition.     One 


108  SERMON    IV. 

messenger  after  another  has  been  sent,  and  at  hist  the 
Divine  Son  of  God  came  forth.  He  came  to  His  own,  but 
His  own  received  Him  not.  And  the  result  has  been  that 
vengeance  appears  to  have  overtaken  them ;  their  vineyard 
has  been  taken  away  and  given  unto  others. 

If  there  were  no  other  interest  belonging  to  the  Jewish 
nation  than  that  which  arises  from  the  operation  of  merely 
ordinary  laws  in  their  history,  they  would  yet  be  singled 
out  as  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  peoples.  The  interest 
■which  belongs  to  them  would  indeed  be  unlike  that  which 
appertains  to  other  nations.  No  mystery  envelopes  their 
origin,  such  as  excites  our  curiosity  with  regard  to  many 
ancient  races,  which  have  left  in  their  cities  and  their 
cemeteries,  the  traces  of  a  civilization  which  must  ever 
remain  an  enigma.  No  widely  spread  influences  can  be 
traced  to  them,  such  as  those  effects  which  Athenian  culti- 
vation has  stamped  indelibly  on  the  world.  No  political 
example  is  offered  in  their  history,  of  a  people  working  out 
its  liberties,  and  then  imprinting  its  laws  on  a  conquered 
world,  such  as  gives  to  Roman  history  its  enduring  interest. 
Yet,  in  spite  of  the  absence  of  these  features,  the  peculiarity 
of  their  pertinacity  of  character,  of  their  persecutions,  and 
their  continuance  as  a  separate  nation  ;  scattered  through 
every  district  of  the  civilized  earth,  yet  not  confounded 
with  the  masses  of  its  population  ;  strangers  where  they 
have  long  had  a  home  ;  foreigners  where  they  have  long 
been  naturalized  ;  separated  by  an  ineffaceable  barrier  from 
societies  with  which  they  hold  the  closest  companionship  ; — 
these  circumstances  alone,  if  there  were  none  of  different  and 
higher  interest,  would  claim  for  their  history  and  condition 
the  attention  of  all  who  desire  to  understand  the  philosophy 
of  man. 

When,  however,  we  superadd  to  this  merely  secular  view 


ON   JEWISH    LITERATURE.  109 

of  their  history  the  Divine  aspect  which  revelation  presents 
us  of  it,  we  feel  that  it  stands  out  singly  in  the  progress  of 
the  race.  Other  histories  embody  ideas  ;  it  is  theirs  alone 
which  embodies  Divine  ideas.  They  stand  out  as  the  in- 
struments of  a  special  administration,  and  the  possessors 
of  a  special  religion.  They  appear  as  the  rejectors  of  the 
Messiah  whom  they  had  long  anticipated,  and  their  dis- 
persion is  regarded  as  a  Providential  punishment  for  that 
act  of  ingratitude. 

It  is  to  the  great  fact  of  the  rejection  by  the  Jews  of 
that  Being  whom  we  believe  to  have  been  the  Messiah, 
that  our  attention  is  to  be  directed  in  the  present  discourse. 
It  is  not  surprising  that  a  philanthropic  individual  who  felt 
a  deep  sympathy  with  those  attempts  which  have  been 
made  to  convert  the  Hebrew  nation  to  Christianity,  and  a 
sincere  interest  in  their  welfare,  should  have  desired  that 
the  subject  should  be  brought  before  this  University,  and 
should  accordingly  have  presented  a  gift  to  it  a  few  years 
ago*  for  an  annual  Sermon,  as  he  himself  expressed  it, 
"  on  the  application  of  the  prophecies  in  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures respecting  the  3Iessiah,  to  our  Lord  and  Saviour 
Jesus  Christy  with  an  especial  view  to  the  confuting  the 
arguments  of  Jewish  commentators,  arid  the  promoting  the 
conversion  to  Christianity  of  the  ancient  people  of  Grod." 

The  subject  of  the  present  discourse  is,  therefore,  de- 
fined by  the  wishes  of  that  benefactor.  I  should  have  been 
glad  if  we  could  have  investigated  the  various  causes  which 
have  operated  most  forcibly  in  preventing  the  Jews  from 
accepting  the  Christian  faith.  The  brief  space  of  our 
present  service  will,  however,  only  permit  of  the  review  of 
a  single  one  of  them,  the  consideration  of  which  will,  I 

*  In  1848. 
10 


110  SERMON   IV. 

hope,  ncvertlieless  answer,  in  some  humble  manner,  the 
noble  purpose  which  our  benefactor  had  at  heart. 

The  cause  to  which  I  allude,  is  the  fact  that  the  Jews 
possess  a  literature  directed  against  Christianity,  which  is 
not  only  taught  to  the  mass  of  their  nation,  but  is  of  suffi- 
cient subtilty  and  importance  to  command  the  respect,  and 
in  some  sense  satisfy  the  judgment,  of  their  intellectual 
men.  We  are  too  apt  to  regard  them  as  rejecting  Chris- 
tianity, simply  because  their  fathers  did  so,  and  because 
they  have  never  had  thc'candor  to  reconsider  the  question. 
This,  however,  is  not  wholly  the  case.  They  possessed, 
especially  in  the  middle  ages,  distinguished  writers,  who 
established  a  regular  school  of  prophetical  interpretation 
in  answer  to  the  Christian  theory  of  the  fulfilment  of  those 
prophecies  which  relate  to  the  Messiah.  And  as  the  wish 
of  the  founder  of  this  Sermon  contemplated  a  reply  to 
those  writers,  which  are  referred  to  in  argument  with  the 
modern  Jews,  I  think  that  it  will  not  be  a  misemploy- 
raent  of  your  time  if  I  first  give  such  a  brief  sketch  of 
Jewish  theological  literature  as  will  enable  you  to  under- 
stand the  nature  of  their  opposition  to  Christianity,  more 
especially  as  I  am  not  aware  that  any  of  those  who  have 
preached  in  past  years  on  this  subject  have  done  so.* 

*  Two  of  the  Sermons  Avliich  bad  Ijcen  preached  in  preceding  years 
have  been  published;  one  by  Dr.  Marsh,  in  1849,  entitled,  "  Predicted 
History  of  the  Messiah  fulfilled  in  Jesus,"  and  the  other  (in  1850)  by 
Eev.  C.  Girdleston,  on  "  Messiah  Pierced,"  both  of  which  Sermons  in- 
vestigate a  single  passage  of  prophecy  without  presenting  an  introduc- 
tion to  the  literature  of  the  subject.  The  sources  from  which  the  facts 
for  the  present  Sermon  have  been  drawn  are  mostly  enumerated  in  the 
notes.  A  useful  work  on  the  history  of  Jewish  literature  has  been  re- 
cently published  by  the  Syriac  scholar,  Dr.  Etheridge,  entitled,  "  Jeru- 
salem and  Tiberias  ;  Sora  and  Cordova  ;  a  Survey  of  the  Religious  and 
Scholastic  Learnin":  of  the  Jews." 


ON   JEAVISH    LITERATURE.  Ill 

Jewish  literature  has  especially  flourished  at  three  dif- 
ferent periods,  and  in  three  different  lands ;— in  Judaea  in 
the  period  which  intervened  between  the  return  from  cap- 
tivity and  the  commencement  of  the  Christian  era;  in 
Galilee  and  Mesopotamia  from  the  3d  to  the  8th  century 
A.D. ;  and  in  Spain  from  the  10th  to  the  15th. 

1.  Few  public  events  ever  worked  so  mighty  an  effect  on 
a  nation  in  so  short  a  period,  as  the  captivity  at  Babylon 
wrought  on  the  Jews.*  It  affected  their  social  and  intel- 
lectual  life  in  modes  which  exist  to  the  present  day.  It 
imparted  to  them  a  new  language  and  a  new  written  charac- 
ter ;t  it  forever  banished  from  them  the  practice  of  poly- 
gamy; it  excited  in  them  a  lasting  hatred  of  idolatry;  it 
enlightened  them  on  the  doctrines  of  a  future  life  and  of 
moral  duty,  and  by  binding  them  in  a  common  suffering 
and  a  common  sorrow,  extinguished  for  a  time  those  un- 
happy feuds  which  had  so  often  proved  their  ruin.  But  it 
was  the  effect  which  related  to  their  literature  with  which 
we  are  now  concerned.  Their  social  state  was  so  altered 
by  their  captivity  that  they  were  compelled  to  form  an 
uninspired  theological  literature.  For  they  returned  home, 
as  we  have  already  hinted,  with  a  new  language.  They 
had  not  only  laid  aside  the  old  Hebrew  alphabetical  charac- 

-  See  Milraan's  "  Hist,  of  the  Jews,"  b.  ix. 

t  The  view  here  intended  is,  that  the  Jews  exchanged  the  old  Hebrew 
or  Samaritan  character  for  the  square  Chaldee,  which  is  now  called 
Hebrew;  the  old  character  reappearing  only  in  coins  of  the  house  of 
the  Maccabees.  The  Hebrew  language  was  also  exchanged  for  Chal- 
dee, or  Eastern  Aramaic ;  and  in  Galilee  and  the  northern  parts  of 
Palestine,  the  pronunciation  in  later  times  probably  approximated 
more  to  the  Western  Aramaic  or  Syriac.  The  original  sources  for 
forming  a  judgment  on  this  question  are  given  in  Home's  '^Introduc- 
tion," vol.  ii,  ch.  1.  See  also  Stuart's  "Hebrew  Grammar"  (Introduc- 
tion), and  Marsh's  *•  Lectures,"  part  ii,  pp.  130,  et  seq. 


112  SERMON    IV. 

tcr,  but  had  adopted  the  forms  of  speech  of  the  Eastern 
Aramaic,  or,  as  it  is  commonly  called,  the  Chaldee  tongue. 
Hence  their  own  law  became  unintelligible  to  them,*  and 
the  necessity  for  understanding  it  called  forth  a  new  order 
of  interpreters,  and  a  new  literature  of  translations  or 
paraphrases  into  the  newly  acquired  tongue.  These  in- 
terpreters are  known  by  the  name  of  the  Rabbins,  and  the 
translations  by  the  name  of  Targums. 

There  were  circumstances,  too,  in  their  social  condition 
at  that  time,  which  gave  increased  importance  to  these 
writings  and  their  authors.  After  the  captivity,  the  Levites 
ceased  to  be  the  great  instruments  for  teaching  the  people, 
and  a  new  order  of  teachers  arose  in  those  separate  little 
centres  of  worship,  which  grew  up  under  the  name  of 
synagogues. t  It  is  not  difficult  to  see  how  such  an  order 
would  gradually  gain  power.  Parallels  are  offered  to  us 
in  other  countries,  as,  for  example,  in  the  epoch  when  the 
Latin  language  ceased  to  be  spoken,  and  was  changed  into 
the  various  tongues  of  modern  Europe;  or  in  India,  in  the 
age  when  the  Sanscrit  ceased  to  be  the  vernacular  tongue, 
and  yet  continued  to  be  the  depository  of  the  religious 
creed.  In  both  epochs  alike  there  continued  to  be  a 
learned  language  in  the  hands  of  an  educated  order  ;  and 
this  order  naturally  acquired  intellectual  and  afterwards 
spiritual  influence ;  in  the  one  case  there  arose  the  Roman 
Catholic  priesthood,  and  in  the  other  the  Brahminical ;  in 
both  they  first  became  the  translators,  and  afterwards  the 
interpreters  of  the  ancient  religious  books. 

It  was  this  department  of  interpretation  which  gave  to 
the  Rabbins  the  opportunity  of  insinuating  into  the  Jewish 

*  Compare  Neli.  8  :  8. 

t  8cc  MilnKui',s  "Hist,  of  the  Jews,"  iii,  book  18. 


ON    JEWISH    LITERATURE.  113 

mind  the  body  of  traditional  doctrine  distinct  from  the 
^vritten  word  of  God,  which  formed  the  strength  of  Phari- 
saism, against  which  our  Lord  so  often  levelled  His  ad- 
dresses.* It  does  not,  however,  appear  that  this  new 
system  of  doctrine  was  at  that  early  period  committed  to 
writing,  or  that  the  paraphrastic  translations  or  Targums 
of  the  ancient  Scriptures,  of  which  we  possess  the  copies, 
were  composed  till  near  the  end  of  the  first  of  those  periods 
into  which  we  divided  Jewish  theological  literature. f  Nor 
would  the  notice  of  them  have  fallen  properly  within  our 
province,  if  it  were  not  on  account  of  the  importance  which 
they  assume  in  controversy,  as  recording  the  interpretations 
assigned  at  that  time  to  certain  passages  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. 

Independently,  however,  of  this  consideration,  the  time 
will  not  be  lost  that  has  been  spent  in  thus  viewing  the 
morning  of  Jewish  uninspired  literature.  The  productions 
of  that  age  may  be  few,  but  in  noticing  the  causes  which 
thus  created  a  literature,  we  have  ascended  to  the  fountain 
head  of  the  waters  which  ultimately  expand  themselves  into 
broad  streams.  And  as  the  student  who  wishes  to  under- 
stand the  history  of  Art  busies  himself  with  the  study  of 
the  age  when  it  was  struggling  to  emancipate  itself  from 
the  crudeness  which  cramped  its  early  efforts  towards  a 
free  development,  so,  if  we  would  view  the  full  daylight  of 
a  nation's  literature,  we  must  watch  its  sun  rising  amid 
twilight,  and  battling  with  the  mists  which  obscured  its 
early  brightness. 

2.  An  interval  of  two  centuries  separates  the  second  age 
of  the  national  literature  from  the  first, — an  interval  during 

*  E.  g.  in  Mark  7. 

t  See  Bartolocci,  ''  Bibliotliec.  Magn.  Rabbin,"  vol.  iii. 
10^ 


114  SERMON    IV. 

•which  the  nation,  after  struggling  for  its  independence,  and 
after  manifesting  a  heroic  patriotism,  even  in  the  hour  of 
its  deepest  gloom,  had  heen  finally  removed  from  that  city 
which,  for  more  than  twelve  hundred  years,  had  been  the 
metropolis  of  the  religion  and  the  race.  Yet  in  spite  of 
their  exile,  the  Jews  were  able  to  maintain  their  nationality, 
and  to  form  centres  of  Jewish  life  in  different  spots  in 
heathen  lands.  Two  places  were  selected  by  them  as  their 
especial  homes.  The  one  was  Galilee,  which  w^as  under  the 
Byzantine  pow^r;  the  other  was  Mesopotamia,  under  the 
Sassanian  dynasty  of  Persia.  In  each  a  centre  of  govern- 
ment existed  for  the  dispersed  Jewish  people,  whence  they 
received  their  creed,  and  to  which  they  yielded  spiritual 
obedience.  In  each  resided  a  Patriarch  who  regulated 
their  whole  system  of  education,  and  directed,  by  means  of 
legates,  the  affairs  of  his  nation  in  other  lands,  exercising  a 
power  which  offers  no  unapt  analogy  in  miniature  to  the 
combined  spiritual  and  temporal  powers  afterwards  exer- 
cised by  the  Popes  of  Rome,  or  by  the  Mahometan  Caliphs. 
While  these  Patriarchs  flourished,  their  abodes — the  one 
at  Tiberius,  the  other  in  Babylonia — were  the  places  around 
which  were  gathered  schools  of  the  most  learned  Jews,  and 
to  which  the  youth  of  their  people,  scattered  in  other  lands, 
betook  themselves  to  receive  their  education.  The  litera- 
ture taught  was  entirely  theological ;  but  a  regular  and 
well-ordered  school  of  it  existed,  which  has  produced  works 
which  form  the  standard  national  literature,  even  at  this 
day.  The  theological  studies  embraced  the  two  subjects 
which  we  are  accustomed  te  call  Biblical  Criticism  and 
Biblical  Interpretation.  The  books  on  the  former  subject 
related  to  the  determination  of  the  genuine  text  of  the 
ancient  Scriptures,  and  are  called  the  Masora ;  the  latter 
related  to  the  meaning  of   the  text,   and   are  called   the 


ON    JEWISH    LITERATURE.  115 

Talmud.  It  is  to  the  school  of  Tiberias  that  we  owe  the 
system  of  Biblical  criticism.  It  was  the  teachers  gathered 
there  about  the  year  a.d.  400,  who  collated  manuscripts, 
and  determined  and  arranged  the  text,  performing  much 
the  same  kind  of  office  which  the  Christian  critic  Origen 
had  so  honorably  executed  at  Alexandria  two  centuries 
earlier;  and  it  was  probably  at  that  time  that  they  at- 
tempted to  fix  the  ancient  pronunciation  of  the  Hebrew  by 
the  invention  of  the  vowel  points,*  with  which  that  lan- 
guage is  now  usually  written. 

While  the  school  of  criticism  was  restricted  to  Tiberias, 
that  of  interpretation  was  even  more  cultivated  by  the  Jews 
of  Babylonia.  A  systematic  digest  was  there  made  of  the 
traditional  interpretations  which  had  grown  up  through 
centuries.  It  was  named  the  Talmud,  and  contained  two 
parts,  the  Mishna,  or  text  of  the  traditions,  and  the  Ge- 
mara,  or  commentary  on  them.  The  difference  will  be 
understood  by  those  who  are  familiar  with  the  legislation 
of  Justinian. t  The  Mishna  was  like  his  Code,  embodying 
the  national  laws ;  the  Gemara,  like  his  Pandects,  embody- 
ing the  mass  of  precedents.  This  system  of  interpretation 
is  received  by  most  Jews  with  the  same  reverence  which 
they  attach  to  the  Scriptures.  It  embodies,  according 
to  their  belief,  an  oral  tradition  originally  revealed  from 
heaven,  and  handed  down  co-ordinately  with  the  sacred 
volume.  Nor  ought  it  to  escape  our  notice  how  closely 
herein  their  feeling  resembles  that  with  which  the  Roman 

*  The  (late  of  the  introduction  of  the  vowel  points  was  a  subject 
much  debated  among  the  great  Hebrew  scholars  of  the  17th  century. 
The  references  for  investigating  it  are  to  be  found  in  Home's  *'  Intro- 
duction," vol.  ii,  ch.  1,  sect.  1;  and  Marsh's  "  Lect.,"  part  ii.  The 
opinion  of  Cappel  here  adopted  is  now  generally  received. 

t  Gibbon's  ''  Decline  and  Fall,"  ch.  44. 


116  SERMON    IV. 

Catholic  regards  the  teaching  of  the  tradition  which  rests 
on  the  authority  of  the  Church; — a  circumstance  at- 
tributable in  its  origin,  as  \\c  have  already  stated,  to  the 
fact  of  the  religious  teaching  resting  with  a  learned  order 
at  a  time  when  the  majority  of  the  people  were  unable  to 
investigate  for  themselves  ;  and  a  clear  example  how  re- 
markably the  various  events  of  the  middle  ages,  in  which 
there  seems  at  first  sight  no  regularity,  are  really  reducible 
to  the  same  causes,  and  capable  of  being  generalized  into 
the  same  laws  ;  being  but  manifestations  of  the  similar  state 
of  society  which  existed  in  different  countries  which  were  at 
the  same  stage  of  political  growth. 

It  is  this  reverent  regard  which  the  Jew  bears  to  the 
Talmud  that  renders  it  of  importance  in  controversy.  It 
stands  to  him  as  the  Bible  does  to  the  Protestant ;  or  as  the 
Vedas  to  the  Brahmin  ;  or  as  the  decrees  of  the  Church  to 
the  Roman  Catholic.  But  there  is  also  another  value  in 
it,  viz.,  that  in  spite  of  the  mass  of  allegorical  and  fanciful 
interpretation  which  it  contains,  it  conveys  the  first  example 
of  the  unreal,  and,  as  we  believe,  forced  interpretations 
which  the  Jews  began  to  find  it  necessary  to  impose  on  the 
old  prophecies,  in  order  to  wrest  them  from  the  use  to  which 
the  Christian  writers  applied  them. 

3.  We  shall  now  proceed  to  sketch  the  third  period,  or, 
as  it  may  be  truly  called,  the  golden  age  of  Jewish  litera- 
ture, which  existed  in  Spain  from  the  10th  to  the  15th 
century. 

The  state  of  the  Hebrew  nation  in  this  period  forms 
nearly  the  only  bright  spot  in  the  sad  picture  of  their  his- 
tory. 

It  cannot  be  a  subject  for  surprise,  that  when  the  Ma- 
hometan conquerors,  at  the  beginning  of  the  "Sth  century, 
crossed  the  straits  which  separate  Africa  from  Europe  to 


ON   JEWISH    LITERATURE.  117 

conquer  the  Spanish  peninsula,  they  were  hailed  by  the 
Jews — who  had  been  bowed  down  under  the  oppression  of  the 
Visigoths — as  friends  and  deliverers.  Under  the  generous 
protection  of  this  race  of  conquerors,  the  Jews  lived  in 
happiness  and  increased  in  material  prosperity,  maintain- 
ing a  commerce  between  the  eastern  and  western  parts  of 
that  sea,  which,  on  three  of  its  shores,  was  inclosed  by  the 
vast  Mahometan  empire  ;  and  it  ought  to  be  an  instructive 
lesson  to  consider  that  it  was  under  the  shelter  of  the  fol- 
lowers of  the  false  Prophet  that  they  found  the  protection 
which  they  sought  in  vain  from  the  followers  of  Him,  whose 
very  last  prayer  had  been  for  their  race  :  "  Father,  forgive 
them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do." 

It  was  the  safety  and  wealth  that  the  nation  possessed, 
which  enabled  its  superior  spirits  to  devote  themselves  to 
intellectual  pursuits.  That  may  truly  be  said  to  have  been 
the  noonday  of  Jewish  literature.  Not  only  in  theology, 
but  in  the  art  of  poetry,  and  in  science,  there  arose  dis- 
tinguished writers.  At  a  time  when  the  rest  of  Europe 
was  enshrouded  in  darkness,  broken  only  by  the  little  lamp 
of  knowledge  which  had  been  borrowed  from  the  Moors, 
science  and  learning  were  beginning  to  shed  their  rays 
over  the  Mahometan  kingdom  of  the  peninsula.  Algebra 
and  the  abstract  sciences  were  eagerly  pursued  by  them, 
and  Jewish  astronomers  were  employed  in  constructing  the 
Alphonsine  tables,  the  interest  of  which  is  well  known.* 
Discoveries  were  made  in  anatomical  science  by  Jews,  and 
the  chief  physicians  in  Europe  were  taken  from  that  na- 
tion ;  whilst  others  of  them,  through  their  knowledge  of 
banking  and  finance,  rose  to  high  ministerial  functions  and 
offices  in  the  courts  of  the  caliphs.  Possessed  of  equal 
rights  with  their  Mahometan  fellow-subjects,  it  seemed  as 

*  The  tables  of  Alplionso  X,  in  1252.     (De  Castro's  Hist.,  p.  G2.) 


118  SERMON    IV. 

if  they  forgot  that  they  were  in  a  strange  land  ;  their  harp 
no  longer  hung  silent  upon  the  willows ;  the  spirit  of  their 
ancient  psalmody  revived ;  and  many  of  their  lyrics  re- 
main, cramped  indeed  by  the  unnatural  adoption  of  the 
Arabian  metre,  and  by  the  use  of  rhyme,  yet  breathing  in 
their  matter  and  meaning  that  spirit  of  poetic  inspiration 
which  always  commands  the  sympathies  and  awakens  the 
response  of  the  general  heart.* 

It  was  in  the  department  of  theology,  however,  that 
their  literature  was  most  distinguished.  It  was  an  accident, 
which  about  the  middle  of  the  8th  century  brought  a  dis- 
tinguished Jewish  theologian  from  the  East  into  Spain. f 
Welcomed  by  his  countrymen,  he  immediately  opened  a 
school  of  Jewish  literature  in  the  then  rising  University  of 
Cordova.  The  higher  Jews,  nevertheless,  still  continued 
to  send  their  children  to  the  schools  of  Egypt  or  Babylon 
to  receive  their  education,  until  the  schism  in  the  caliphate 
and  the  persecutions  commenced  in  the  11th  century  by 
the  Egyptian  (Fatimite)  dynasty  drove  the  Jewish  profes- 
sors to  seek  refuge  under  the  enlightened  sway  of  the 
Spanish  caliphs.  The  effect  of  this  immigration  on  the 
revival  of  Jewish  learning  was  almost  as  marked  as  that 
which  was  seen  in  the  analogous  case  of  the  revival  of 
Greek  literature  in  the  15th  century,  when  the  Greek 
population  of  Constantinople  retreated  into  Western  Eu- 
rope on  the  taking  of  their  city  by  the  Mahometans. 

Schools  of  Jewish  theology  not  only  sprung  up  imme- 
diately in  Cordova  and  the  other  great  cities,  such  as 
Seville  and  Granada,  which  formed  the  glory  of  the  south 
of  Spain,  but  their  influence  extended  across  the  chain  of 

*  The  MediDBvfil  Jewish  Poetry  will  be  found  translated  into  German, 
in  "Die  S^'nogale  Pocsie  des  Mittelalters,  von  Dr.  Zunz;  Beriin,  1855. 
See  also  his  work,  "  Zur  Geschichtc  und  Literatur;  Berlin,  1845." 


t  Named  Moses.     See  Milman's  "  Hist,  of  Jews,"  iii, 


ON    JEWISH    LITERATURE.  119 

mountains  which  hems  in  the  province  of  Andalusia,  and 
made  itself  felt  in  the  Universities  of  Toledo  and  Valencia, 
and  even  as  far  north  as  Barcelona.  The  great  subjects 
of  study  in  these  schools  were  the  principles  of  Biblical, 
and  especially  of  prophetical  interpretation.  Though 
much  tied  down  by  the  authority  of  the  Talmud,  the 
teachers  still  felt  that  its  system  of  interpretation  was 
often  fanciful,  its  great  fault  being  that  it  partook  of  the 
common  property  of  Oriental  thought,  of  assigning  an  alle- 
gorical meaning  to  that  which  is  literal  and  fact."^  Reject- 
ing, therefore,  an  allegorical  interpretation,  they  adopted 
a  literal  and  grammatical  one,  and  accordingly  laid  a  basis 
for  it  in  the  careful  study  of  the  structure  and  genius  of 
their  own  tongue. 

Thus  far  their  principles  may  have  been  sincere,  and 
suggested  by  an  honest  perception  of  the  improprieties  of 
the  ordinary  system  of  interpretation  ;  yet  it  must  be  added 
that  the  chief  motive,  which  is  at  once  apparent  in  many  of 
their  interpretations  of  particular  passages,  is  the  design  of 
giving  such  a  meaning  to  them  as  to  destroy  the  force  of 
the  Christian  interpretation  of  them. 

It  may  be  well,  for  the  sake  of  giving  individuality  to 
these  writers,  to  name  the  principal  of  them.f  The  early 
part  of  the  12th  century  produced  three,  viz.,  Jarchi,  sur- 
named  Rashi,  Aben  Ezra,  and   David  Kimchi ;  and  the 

*  This  allegorical  mode  of  interpretation  became  common  about  the 
time  of  Philo  (a.d.  40).  See  Essay  ou  Philo,  in  Prof.  Jowetl's  work  on 
St.  Paul's  Epistles. 

t  For  information  on  these  and  other  subjects,  see  J.  B.  De  Rossi's 
"  Dizionario  Storico  degli  Autori  Ebrei  e  delloloro  opere  ;"  also,  "  Hist, 
of  Jews  of  Spain  and  Portugal,  by  E.  H.  Lindo,  1848  ;"  also,  "  Hist, 
of  the  Jews  in  Spain,  by  Don  Adolfo  de  Castro,  1851  ;"  also  the  works 
of  Calmet,  Basnage,  Gaffarelli,  Delitzsch,  Julius  FUrst,  and  Jo.  Chr. 
Wolf. 


120  SERMON    IV. 

latter  part  of  it  produced  one,  viz.,  Maimonides.  The 
first  of  these,  Jarchi,  ^vas  not,  strictly  speaking,  a  Spanish 
Jew.  He  lived  in  the  northeast  of  France,  and  was  the 
cotemporary  and  disciple  of  Abelard,  and  of  other  distin- 
guished men,  who  in  that  age  adorned  the  University  of 
Paris.  His  mind  was  cultivated  by  extensive  travel,  and 
his  commentaries  are  creditable  to  the  judgment  of  their 
writer.  The  second  of  them,  Aben  Ezra,  taught  a  few 
years  later  at  Cordova.  Eminent  in  his  own  day  for  his 
general  cultivation,  and  for  his  acquaintance  with  foreign 
tongues,  he  is  now  known  only  as  the  author  of  a  subtle 
commentary,  which  will  bear  comparison  with  those  of  a 
better  age.  The  third,  Kimchi,  taught  also  in  Spain,  and 
is  allowed  by  both  Jews  and  Christians  alike,  to  be  a  com- 
mentator remarkable  for  power  of  language,  profoundness 
of  knowledge,  and  clearness  of  method.  The  other  name 
which  we  enumerated,  is  more  generally  known,  viz.,  Ma*- 
monidcs.  Educated  at  Cordova  by  Averroes,  the  celebrated 
commentator  on  Aristotle,  he  was  thoroughly  acquainted 
with  Greek  philosophy,  as  well  as  with  Jewish  theology. 
Accordingly  he  rose  above  the  level  of  a  mere  commenta- 
tor. Under  the  garb  of  a  theologian  he  was  really  a 
philosopher.  His  purpose  formed  no  unworthy  parallel  to 
that  of  the  Christian  Aquinas,  who  lived  in  Italy  about 
half  a  century  later.  Just  as  that  great  thinker  aimed  at 
giving  a  universal  philosophy,  which,  grasping  in  one  mag- 
nificent generalization  the  worlds  of  matter  and  of  mind, 
mifT'ht  assign  to  the  Christian  and  ecclesiastical  doctrine  its 
true  position  in  such  a  scheme ;  so  Maimonides,  endea- 
vored to  evolve  a  universal  philosophy,  from  which  the 
Rabinical  conceptions  of  the  Talmud  might  be  natural 
corollaries.  Both  were  trammelled  by  a  body  of  doctrine 
which  they  neither  desired  nor  were  able  to  reject.     But 


ON    JEWISH    LITERATURE.  121 

MaimoniJes,  less  fortunate  than  Aquinas,  was  deemed  to 
have  trespassed  on  the  received  creed ;  and  not  only  were 
his  opinions  the  means  of  producing  theological  feuds,  but 
their  author  was  compelled  to  quit  Spain,  and  die  an  exile 
in  a  foreign  land. 

After  Maimonides  the  glory  of  the  Jewish  people  began 
to  decline.  Their  literature  became,  indeed,  known  in 
foreign  lands,  and  the  system  of  Pantheistic  philosophy 
called  the  Cabbala,  was  even  reproduced  with  approval  in 
Florence,  in  the  brightest  period  of  Italian  literature.'''  But 
in  Spain,  the  events  which  followed  tended  to  extinguish 
their  literature.  The  tide  of  Gfiristian  conquest,  which  had 
steadily  set  in  from  the  North,  overflowed,  about  the  year 
A.D.  1240,  the  valley  of  the  Guadalquiver,  and  Cordova 
and  Seville  were  retaken  by  the  Christian  kings  of  Spain. 
And  though  the  conqueror  transferred  the  Jewish,  teachers 
to  Toledo,  and  offered  them  his  protection,  succeeding  sove- 
reigns persecuted  them,  and  one  only  name  stands  out  in 
their  theological  literature  as  a  writer  against  Christianity, 
viz.,  Abarbanel,  whose  name  is  well  known  in  connection 
with  the  court  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  and  the  circum- 
stances of  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews  from  Spain.  It  is 
necessary,  however,  to  add  to  this  list  one  more  name,  that 
of  an  individual  who  flourished  in  Lithuania  about  the  close 
of  the  16th  century.  It  is  the  Rabbin  Isaac,  the  author  of 
the  most  complete  defence  of  the  Jewish  creed,  and  the 
most  subtle  and  controversial  attack  on  our  religion  which 
has  ever  been  written,  and  which,  along  with  those  previ- 
ously noticed,  is  the  standard  authorit}^  with  the  modern 
Jews. 

The  history  which  we  have  now  completed  will,  I  trust, 
not  have  proved  uninteresting,  as  it  assuredly  is  not  irrele- 

*  By  Pico  (li  Mirandola.     See  Hallam's  ''Hist,  of  Lit.,''  i,  .1,  202. 

11 


122  SKRMON    IV. 

vant  to  the  subject  of  our  present  sermon,  which  is  the 
establishment  of  the  Christian  interpretation  of  prophecies 
relating  to  the  Messiah,  iigainst  the  views  of  the  Jewish 
commentators. 

"VVe  shall  proceed  accordingly  to  notice  the  proof  of  the 
Messiahship  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  drawn  from  the 
prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament,  with  a  special  reference 
to  the  refutation  of  the  Spanish  school  of  Jewish  interpre- 
tation. 

The  controversy  between  the  Jew  and  the  Christian  con- 
sists in  this.  Both  admit  the  existence  of  a  body  of  ancient 
prophecy  predicting  a  Messiah,  but  they  differ  in  their 
interpretation  of  it.  The  one  asserts  that  the  Messiah  has 
not  yet  come,  the  other  claims  for  Jesus  of  Nazareth  the 
fulfilment  of  those  anticipations.  How  shall  this  contro- 
versy be  decided  ?* 

One  of  the  most  simple  methods  would  be  this :  Let  us 
imagine  ourselves  to  have  been  living  at  the  period  of  the 
utterance  of  these  prophecies,  and  endeavoring  to  collect 
from  them  the  conceptions  of  this  future  personage  which 
they  would  have  been  likely  to  supply.  What  idea  should 
we  have  formed  to  ourselves  of  him  ?  We  should  have 
fixed  the  date  of  his  appearing  before  the  power  of  the 
Jewish  race  should  depart ;  for  the  sceptre  Avas  not  to 
depart  till  Shiloh  came.f  We  should  have  placed  it  more 
exactly,  as  Daniel  tells  us,  within  seventy  weeks,  i.  <?.,  four 
hundred  and  ninety  years,  from  the  edict  of  Artaxerxes  for 
the  rebuilding  of  Jerusalem. {     We  should  have  expected 

'^  The  follovvliif,'  arrrumonts  arc  partly  condensed  from  one  of  Dr. 
McCaul's  *•' Warburton  Lectures  on  the  Prophecies''  (184G),and  partly 
suggested  by  a  periodical  formerly  published  by  him,  entitled,  "The 
Old  Paths,  or  a  Comparison  of  the  Principles  and  Doctrines  of  Modern 
Judaism  with  the  Religion  of  Moses  and  the  Prophets,"  8vo.  1837. 

fGen.  49:  10.  t  Dan.  9:  2'). 


ON    JEWISH    LITERATURE.  123 

the  continuance  of  the  second  temple  until  the  appearance 
of  the  Messiah,  for  Ilaggai  declared  that  the  desired  of  all 
nations  should  come  in  it.*  We  should  have  anticipated 
some  predecessor  to  come  in  the  spirit  of  Elias  to  prognos- 
ticate his  approach.f  The  prophecy  of  Micah  would  not 
have  left  us  ignorant  as  to  the  place  where  we  might  expect 
his  appearance,  for  it  was  to  be  in  the  despised  Bethlehem 
Ephratah.l  Extraordinary  combinations  of  qualities  were 
to  be  expected  in  him.  A  virgin  of  the  lineage  of  David 
was  to  conceive  and  bear  him  ;§  and  yet  lie  was  to  be  in 
some  mysterious  manner  the  Son  of  God,  whose  goings 
forth  have  been  from  of  old,  from  everlasting.||  He  was  to 
exercise  the  office  of  a  prophet,  and  to  imitate  the  ancient 
Moses  ;T[  his  prophetic  mission  was  to  commence  in  Galilee, 
for  it  was  said  that  there  the  people  should  see  a  great 
light.**  The  wonders  of  the  old  prophets  were  to  be  re- 
produced in  him  ;  the  eyes  of  the  blind  to  be  opened,  and 
the  ears  of  the  deaf  to  be  unstopped. ff  He  was  to  be  a 
priest  too  of  a  new  kind.JJ  The  government  also  should 
be  upon  his  shoulder,  and  his  name  should  be  called  Won- 
derful, Counsellor,  the  Mighty  God,  the  Everlasting  Father, 
the  Prince  of  Peace. §§  Kings  should  fall  down  before  him.|||| 
Of  the  increase  of  his  government  there  was  to  be  no  end.TIf 
Yet  along  with  this  greatness  how  should  we  have  recon- 
ciled the  other  qualities  of  which  we  read  ?  He  was  to  be 
despised  and  rejected  of  men,  a  man  of  deep  sorrow,  des- 
pised by  his  own  friends,  acquainted  with  griefs  ;***  how 

-Hagg.  2:  7.  f  Mai.  3  :  1;  4:5. 

t  Micah  5:  2.  |  Isa.  7  :  14. 

II  Micah  5:  2.  ^  Deut.  18:15. 

^*Isa.  9:1.  tflsa.  35:5. 

tJPs.  110:4.  ^^Isa.  9:6. 

nil  Ps.  72:11.  nisa.  9:7. 
^^'■'^  Isa,  53  :  3. 


124  SERMON    IV. 

should  we  have  harmonized  his  universal  reign  with  the 
lowly  riding  on  an  ass,*  and  with  his  being  weighed  against 
thirty  pieces  of  silver  ?f  Lasth^,  he  was  to  be  cut  off,  but 
not  for  himself.  Cruelly  mocked,  he  was  to  die  with  the 
wicked, J  his  garments  were  to  be  parted, §  and  yet  he  was 
to  escape  the  fate  of  ordinary  malefactors  ;  his  bones  were 
not  to  be  broken,  though  his  side  was  to  be  pierced,  and  he 
was  to  make  his  grave  with  the  rich.||  But  his  soul  was 
not  to  be  left  in  the  grave  ;^  and  he  was  to  receive  gifts  for 
men,  and  lead  captivity  captive,**  and  pour  out  his  Spirit, 
and  sons  and  daughters  were  to  prophesy. ff 

Such  is  the  conception  that  might  have  been  formed  of 
the  future  Messiah,  when  the  roll  of  the  Old  Testament 
prophecy  was  closed,  and  the  voice  of  Providence  sealed 
up  the  words  of  the  prophecy  of-  that  book,  xind  can  a 
candid  mind  doubt  whether  the  being  has  yet  appeared 
who  answers  to  this  anticipation  ?  Who  is  it  that  is  yonder 
in  the  town  of  Bethlehem, — the  young  infant  on  the  knee 
of  his  virgin  mother  ?  Who  is  it  that  is  near  the  Jordan, 
saluted  as  the  lamb  of  God  by  the  hermit  prophet,  at  whose 
wondrous  teaching  the  Jews  have  repented  as  of  old  at  that 
of  Elias  on  Mount  Carmel  ?  Who  is  it  that  toils  day  by 
day  among  the  highlands  of  Galilee,  never  rejecting  the 
prayer  of  the  needy,  dispensing  his  mercy  ?  AVho  is  it  that 
kneels  yonder,  lonely  in  the  garden,  bathed  with  the  dews 
of  night,  bleeding  with  the  agony  of  a  soul  exceeding  sor- 
rowful, muttering,  as  if  in  the  consciousness  that  he  was 
not  cut  off  for  his  own  sin,  "Father,  if  it  be  possible,  let 
this    cup  pass   from    me?"     What  has  caused    Nature   to 

-Zech.  9:9.  f  Zech.  11  :  12,  13. 

tisa.  53:  i).  P^s.  22:18. 

Illsa.  53:9.  1[  Ps.  16:  18. 

--Ps.  68:18.  ft  Joel  2:  28. 


ON    JEWISU    LITERATURE.  VZb 

respond  by  a  miraculous  darkness  as  one  of  yon  malefac- 
tors has  exclaimed,  "  It  is  finished,"  and  has  given  up  the 
ghost  ?  Or,  where  can  his  buried  body  be  gone  ?  "  for 
some  one  has  taken  him  aAvay,"  exclaims  his  weeping  fol- 
lower, Magdalen,  "  and  we  know  not  where  they  have  laid 
him."  Tell  me,  I  ask  you,  if  it  is  not  the  individual,  God 
and  man.  Saviour  and  sufferer.  Prophet  and  sacrifice,  of 
whom  the  prophets  wrote  and  spoke  ?  Tell  me  which  is 
history  and  which  prophecy,  the  statements  made  hundreds 
of  years  before  his  appearance,  or  the  simple  unadorned 
narrative  of  His  loving  disciples  ? 

So  close  a  coincidence  betwixt  prophecy  and  history 
carries  a  moral  force  which  is  well-nigh  irresistible.  What- 
ever difficulties  may  attend  the  interpretation  of  prophecy, 
whatever  discredit  the  rash  haste  of  undisciplined  minds 
may  in  this  day  have  cast  upon  it,  whatever  suspicion  the 
modern  investigations  on  the  nature  of  evidence  may  have 
thrown  upon  analogical  reasoning,*  such  an  accumulative 
proof  as  this,  is  powerful  enough  to  outweigh  them.  If  the 
number  of  the  coincidences  were  small,  or  their  application 
merely  general,  we  might  doubt  whether  the  interpretation 
of  the  prophecies  was  not  fanciful ;  but  their  multitude, 
their  minuteness,  and  their  variety,  forbid  ihe  possibility. 
The  value  of  collective  analogies  like  those  with  which  we 
deal  in  assigning  the  meaning  of  prophecies,  depends  upon 
the  principle  which  is  commonly  called  "  circumstantial 
evidence."  As  they  increase  in  number,  in  intricacy,  in 
variety,  the  improbability  of  a  chance  coincidence  becomes 
immensely  heightened.  The  hemp  threads  which  compose 
a  coil  of  rope  are  separately  weak,  yet  when  united  and 
intertwined,    they    form    the    tenacious    cable    which    has 

''  See  Mill's  "  Logic,"  vol.  ii,  ch.  20. 
11- 


126  SERMON    IV. 

strength  enough  to  resist  the  force  of  pressure,  or  to  allow 
the  ships  to  ride  at  their  anchorage  in  safety  as  they  rise 
and  fall  before  the  heavy  swell  of  the  rolling  tide.* 

But  it  will  naturally,  occur  to  any  of  us  to  whom  the 
proof  of  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus  appears  so  clear,  to  de- 
mand the  grounds  on  which  the  Jewish  writers  reject  it. 
Their  reasons  are  principally  three,  which  we  now  proceed 
to  consider,!  viz.  : — 

(1.)  The  historical  one,  that  the  Sanhedrim  and  Jewish 
authorities,  in  our  Lord's  lifetime,  who  had  every  means  of 
examining  the  claims  of  Jesus,  and  who  were  actually  pre- 
disposed to  accept  a  Messiah  about  that  time,  rejected  His 
claims. 

(2.)  The  philosophical  one,  that  an  incarnation  of  a 
Divine  Being  is  an  impossibility  in  the  nature  of  things,  as 
well  as  contrary  to  the  analogy  of  the  Mosaic  dispensation. 

(3.)  The  critical  one,  that  the  prophecies  which  relate  to 
the  Messiah  are  in  great  part  either  mistranslated  or  mis- 
interpreted. The  first  of  these  is  the  popular  objection ; 
the  second,  that  of  Maimonides ;  tlie  third,  that  of  the 
other  members  of  the  school  of  Spanish  commentators. 

*  Circumstantial  evidence  is  logically  invalid,  in  consequence  of  the 
technical  fault  of  the  middle  term  being  undistributed  in  each  of  the 
syllogisms  which  compose  it.  Each  syllogism  is  the  dvavuuov  <rn,ui'tov  of 
Aristotle's  "  llhet."  (i,  ch.  2),  and  falls  into  the  second  figure.  But 
though  each  argument  is  separately  weak,  the  convergence  of  a  large 
number,  in  proof  of  the  same  conclusion,  possesses  by  the  doctrine  of 
chances  a  high  logical  probability,  and  in  its  moral  effect  is  irresistible. 
It  is  this  which  constitutes  much  of  the  strength  of  Butler's  "  Analogy." 
The  single  analogies  are  weak,  but  the  number  and  convergence  of 
them  towards  tlie  same  point  have  the  force  of  strong  circumstantial 
evidence. 

t  These  three  reasons  arc  well  discussed  in  McCaul's  "  Warburton 
Lectures,"  to  which  reference  has  alroadvbeen  made. 


ON    JEWISH    LITERATURE.  127 

1.  In  reply  to  the  first  of  these  arguments,  it  is  suffi- 
cient to  urge  that  we  are  not  in  doubt  as  to  the  character  of 
the  Sanhedrim  in  the  time  of  our  Saviour.  Josephus  re- 
mains as  an  unprejudiced  witness  of  the  profligacy,  the 
corruption,  the  worhlly  and  sceptical  spirit  of  that  body. 
It  is  natural  that  the  Sadducean  or  sceptical  party  in  that 
assembly  should  have  rejected  our  Lord's  pretensions ; 
while,  with  regard  to  the  Pharisaic  section,  any  one  who 
will  refer  to  the  Talmud,  which  embodies  the  traditional 
theology  of  Pharisaism,  will  feel  convinced  that  those  whose 
minds  were  enslaved  by  such  puerilities,  and  whose  faith  in 
a  Messiah,  firm  though  it  may  have  been,  was  in  the  ap- 
pearance of  an  earthly  sovereign,  were  not  capable  of  being 
correct  judges  of  the  claims  of  One  who  preached  a  doctrine 
which  was  opposed  to  theirs,  and  whose  life  ran  counter  to 
their  preconceptions.  This  reply,  it  will  be  observed,  is 
founded  on  Jewish  authorities ;  but  if  the  Christian  evan- 
gelists be  further  appealed  to  as  cotemporary,  though  (let 
us  for  the  moment  admit)  onc-sidcd,  witnesses,  a  confirma- 
tion of  this  view  is  attained  ;  for  from  them  we  learn  that 
no  proper  or  candid  investigations  of  our  Lord's  claims 
were  ever  made. 

2.  In  passing  to  the  second  objection,  which  is  urged  on 
the  part  of  the  Jews,  we  no  longer  encounter  one  that  is 
merely  superficial,  but  one  which  comes  with  higher  pre- 
tensions, and  is  supported  by  a  great  name.  It  is  Maimo- 
nides  who  urges  the  impossibility  of  the  incarnation  of 
deity  and  the  contrariety  of  such  an  idea  to  the  Mosaic 
economy. 

We  have  before  shown  that  the  philosophy  of  Maimo- 
nides  was  partly  founded  on  that  of  Aristotle  ;  but  to  this 
ingredient  was  also  added  a  considerable  admixture  of  the 
Oriental   philosophy  of   Zoroaster.      It  was    this    system 


128  SERMON    IV. 

Tvhicb,  learned  by  the  Jews  during  the  captivity,  and 
wrought  into  a  system  called  the  Cabbala,  and  embodied  in 
a  work  of  the  early  ages,  called  the  Zohar,  infected  more 
or  less  their  men  of  superior  minds  to  the  latest  period  of 
the  middle  ages.  Without  inquiring  -what  it  was  in  itself, 
it  would  have  amounted,  as  realized  by  Maimonides,  to  a 
system  of  pantheism,  if  it  had  not  been  modified  by  his 
Jewish  education.  If  you  can  combine  the  Jewish  idea  of 
one  personal  God  with  the  pantheistic  notion  of  the  impos- 
sibility of  his  attributes  being  separated  from  the  universe, 
you  will  understand  Maimonides's  idea  of  the  Divine  Being. 
It  will  not  be  hard  for  those  who  comprehend  the  subject 
to  perceive  how  such  a  person  would  feel  an  aversion  to  the 
idea  of  the  incarnation  and  suffering  of  divinity.  And  we 
may  be  excused  from  pausing  to  refute  a  view  which  re- 
ceives its  answer  by  the  refutation  of  the  theory  from  which 
it  is  a  corollary. 

The  other  part  of  his  objection — viz.,  that  the  idea  of  an 
incarnate  Messiah  was  contrary  to  God's  revelation  to  the 
Jews— was  founded  on  his  view  of  the  purpose  of  the  law 
of  Moses.  He  has  left  us  a  work  on  this  subject,*  wherein 
he  endeavors  to  show  that  the  central  thought  of  the  ancient 
dispensation  was  to  lead  the  Jews  to  the  knowledge  of  God 
and  the  abandonment  of  idolatry.  Hence  he  plausibly 
considers  that  the  idea  of  Jesus  being  the  Messiah  would 
be  a  glaring  instance  of  the  very  infringement  of  the  com- 
mand which  forbade  the  making  any  similitude  of  the  Al- 
mighty, for  the  violation  of  which  the  Jews  had  so  often 
suffered,  and  the  obedience  to  which  it  had  been  the  great 
purpose  of  the  Jewish  economy  to  establish. 

*  "  The  Reasons  of  the  Laws  of  Moses,  from  the  More  Nevochim,'^ 
translated  by  Dr.  Townley. 


ON   JEWISH    LITERATURE.  129 

The  answer  to  this  objection  is  to  be  found,  first,  in  the 
historical  statements  of  the  repeated  appearances  of  the 
Divine  Being  under  human  form  in  both  the  Patriarchal 
and  Jewish  times;  and,  secondly,  in  denying  that  the  wor- 
ship of  God  and  man  in  one  Christ  is  obnoxious  to  the 
charge  of  producing  that  moral  evil  on  the  mind  which  the 
old  forbidden  idolatry  confessedly  effected. 

3.  Leaving  these  objections  urged  by  the  Jews  against 
Christianity,  we  pass  to  the  third, — the  assertion  that  the 
prophecies  supposed  to  apply  to  the  Messiah  are  either  mis- 
translated or  misinterpreted.  With  regard  to  the  former 
charge,  it  is  not  necessary  to  make  any  observations,  be- 
cause the  defence  of  it  is  now  given  up  by  their  own  writers, 
and  because  the  ancient  versions  of  which  we  spoke,  called 
the  Targums,  frequently  support  the  Christian  translation 
of  the  disputed  texts.  Nor  shall  1  say  anything  in  refer- 
ence to  the  subject  of  types,  though  it  truly  belongs  to  this 
point;  for  type  is  but  a  prediction  by  action,  as  prophecy 
is  by  words  ;  and  the  Jews  are  unable  to  find  any  solution 
so  plausible  to  account  for  the  sacrifices  of  their  own  law  as 
that  which  is  offered  by  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews.  If  Jewish  sacrifice  was  (as  they  believe)  from 
heaven,  it  is  an  enigma  insoluble  except  by  Christianity. 
We  restrict  ourselves  accordingly  to  the  charge  urged  by 
the  Jews  of  misinterpretation  of  prophecy. 

The  prophetic  texts  which  are  made  the  grounds  of  dis- 
pute are  treated  by  the  Hebrew  school  of  commentators  in 
two  different  modes.  The  one  class  of  passages  is  explained 
by  giving  them  a  local  and  literal  sense,  as,  for  example, 
applying  the  passage  of  Isaiah,  "  Unto  us  a  child  is  born, 
and  he  shall  be  called  wonderful,"*  to  Hezekiah ;  the  other 

■^  Isa.  9  :  G. 


130  SERMON    IV. 

class  is  where  apparently  contradictory  attributes  are  ap- 
plied to  the  Messiah,  as  when  he  is  described  as  "  sitting 
on  the  throne  of  David  to  order  it  and  to  establish  it  for- 
ever;"* and  in  another  place  as  "wounded  for  sin  and 
bruised  for  transgression,  and  making  his  grave  with  the 
wicked."!  This  class  is  explained  by  supposing  that  there 
were  to  be  two  Messiahs, — one  to  suffer,  the  son  of  Joseph  ; 
the  other  to  reign,  the  son  of  David. 

The  majority  of  the  passages  in  dispute  are  contained, 
as  would  be  supposed,  in  the  Psalms,  in  Isaiah,  and  in 
Zechariah  ;  these  being,  for  this  reason,  called  emphatically 
the  three  evangelical  books  of  the  Old  Testament. 

We  may  adduce  as  an  example  of  the  passages  which  are 
explained  to  refer  to  some  other  person  than  the  Messiah, 
the  magnificent  text  where  Zechariah  breaks  out  into  the 
strain, J  "Awake,  0  sword,  against  my  shepherd,  and 
against  the  man  that  is  my  fellow,  saith  the  Lord  of  Hosts: 
smite  the  shepherd,  and  the  sheep  shall  be  scattered :  and 
I  will  turn  mine  hand  upon  the  little  ones."  The  commen- 
tator, Kimchi,§  and  others  to  whom  we  have  alluded,  assign 
this  text  to  various  heathen  kings,  and  understand  them  to 
be  described  in  it  ironically  as  Jehovah's  fellows.  What  is 
the  line  which  might  be  adopted  in  reply  to  this  view?  It 
is,  first,  that  tlie  Targums  and  the  Talmud  both  apply  it  to 
the  Messiah,  thereby  proving  that  such  was  the  view  of  its 
meaning  adopted  by  the  ancient  Jewish  Church ;  and, 
secondly,  that  the  new  interpretation,  if  even  it  will  fit  the 

*  Isa.  9:7.  f  Isa.  5:\ :  .5-9.  J.  Zech.  18:7. 

§  The  Commentary  of  Kimchi  on  Zechariah  has  been  translated, 
with  a  useful  Commentary,  by  Dr.  McCaul ;  to  which,  with  the  other 
works  on  the  Jews  by  the  same  writer,  such  as  the  intellectual  state  of 
Rabbinical  Jews,  in  ch.  1  of  "  Sketches  of  Judaism  and  the  Jews,"  the 
author  of  this  Sermon  is  under  laroe  obli/rations. 


ON    JEWISH    LITERATURE.  131 

passage  under  consideration,  would  not  suit  the  context, 
because  the  same  person  who  is  here  called  "  Jehovah's 
fellow"  and  "the  shepherd  of  the  people"  is  predicted  to 
be  sold  for  thirty  pieces  of  silver,  to  be  abhorred  by  the 
rich,  to  be  loved  by  the  poor,  and  to  be  cut  off  before  the 
scattering  of  the  Jews.  Here  are  several  circumstances 
which  must  be  combined  in  any  theory  of  the  meaning  of 
this  passage.  For  the  laws  of  critical  interpretation  must 
be  amenable  to  the  tests  which  regulate  hypotheses  in  the 
sciences;  and  if  \^e  are  accustomed  to  hold  it  to  be  the 
highest  confirmation  of  a  scientific  theory  that  it  is  ade- 
quate to  explain  the  various  phenomena  to  which  it  is 
applied,*  is  it  too  much  to  require  that  such  a  test  shall  be 
regarded  as  equally  decisive  in  the  science  of  Scripture 
hermeneutics  ? 

The  other  class  of  texts  to  which  we  alluded  as  describing 
at  once  the  glory  and  the  humiliation  of  the  Messiah  is  too 
well  known  and  too  numerous  to  require  quotation.  The 
pathetic  descriptionf  of  the  person  "smitten  and  stricken," 
whose  "soul  was  made  an  offering  for  sin,"  "upon  whom 
was  our  peace,  and  upon  whom  God  laid  the  iniquity  of  us 
all,"  is  a  sufficient  example,  especially  as  the  whole  body 
of  Jewish  mediaeval  commentators  admit  (as  their  fathers 
did)  that  it  applies  to  the  Messiah.  But  they  explain  it  to 
apply  to  a  different  Messiah  from  those  texts  which  de- 
scribe a  Messiah  who  is  to  reign.  In  reply  to  this  view, 
it  is  sufficient  to  state  that  we  can  prove  historically  that  it 
Avas  unknown  until  it  was  invented,  in  the  process  of  con- 

*  The  two  tests  of  scientific  hypothesis  usually  given  are,  that  the 
supposed  cause  be  vera,  and  that  it  be  adcequata.  See  the  interpre- 
tation offered  of  them  in  Mill's  "  Logic,"  vol.  ii,  b.  iii,  ch.  14. 

t  Isaiah  53. 


132  SERMON    IV. 

troversy,  for  the  purpose  of  refuting  Christianity  ;  and  that 
not  only  is  there  no  example  of  a  promise  of  two  Messiahs, 
but  such  a  vieAV  is  contrary  to  passages  in  the  prophets, 
VfheYQ  the  same  person  is  spoken  of  in  the  same  verse 
under  the  two  capacities  of  monarch  and  sufferer,  trium- 
phant and  abased. 

We  have  now  sketched  the  Jewish  objections  and  the 
mode  of  their  refutation  ;  and  v/e  might,  if  time  would 
allow,  accumulate  direct  arguments  in  favor  of  the  Chris- 
tian view  of  the  advent  of  the  Messiah  in  the  person  of 
Christ.  But  it  may  be  permitted  us  to  remark  that,  in 
any  attempt  to  draw  inferences  from  the  prophecies  of  the 
Bible,  we  encounter  a  difficulty,  arising  from  the  want  of 
any  fixed  principles  of  interpretation.  In  the  explanation 
of  the  other  mystical  parts  of  the  Bible,  such  as  the  type, 
the  allegorj^,  or  the  parable,  theological  science  has  to  a 
great  extent  ascertained  fixed  methods  of  interpretation  ; 
but  in  the  explanation  of  the  prophecies  there  is  no  such 
rule.  We  have  hinted  already  what  must  be  the  plan  for 
discovering  such  rules.  It  must  be  by  a  careful  study  (1)  of 
the  nature  and  value  of  analogical  evidence ;  (2)  of  the 
nature  and  meaning  of  Hebrew  symbolical  language ;  and 
(3)  by  the  analysis  of  some  few  instances  in  which  prophe- 
cies have  been  undoubtedly  fulfilled,  in  order  that  rules 
derived  from  the  two  former  methods  may  be  tested  and 
verified  by  the  latter.  Such  a  system  of  prophetical  in- 
terpretation is  yet  to  be  created.  Yet  it  will  not,  I  hope, 
be  improper  in  this  place  if  I  adduce  the  name  of  one 
individual — an  ornament  of  our  University  and  Church, 
who,  had  he  lived  longer,  might  perhaps  have  given  such 
a  system,  and  who  has  left  a  work,  cautious,  logical,  ori- 
ginal, and  philosophical,  which  is  earnestly  to  be  recom- 
mended to  every  theological   student.      I  allude   to   Mr. 


ON    JEWISH    LITERATURE.  133 

Davison's  "Lectures  on  the  Structure,  Use,  and  Interpre- 
tation of  Prophecy."  It  is  one  of  those  few  works  which 
can  be  pointed  to  as  assisting  in  raising  theology  to  the 
dignity  of  a  fixed  science. 

In  conclusion,  I  wish  to  draw  two  brief  inferences ;  the 
first  of  which  concerns  our  duty  to  the  Jews,  the  second 
our  duty  to  ourselves. 

1.  We  have  sketched  only  one  great  feature  of  modern 
Jewish  life,  but  it  is  one  which  will  commend  itself  above 
all  others  to  the  sympathies  of  this  present  congregation. 
We  have,  nevertheless,  seen  enough  to  serve  as  an  argu- 
ment to  our  consciences  in  claiming  for  the  Jewish  nation 
our  interest  and  our  respect.  Whatever  may  be  the  other 
hindrances  to  such  a  conversion  of  them  as  shall  admit 
them  to  share  the  blessings  of  Christianity,  the  obstacle,  at 
least,  which  arises  from  intellectual  prejudice  may  be,  we 
may  hope,  subdued  by  argument,  or  dissipated  by  kind- 
ness. It  was  with  a  purpose  of  this  kind  that  a  few  years 
ago  a  Bishopric  was  founded  at  Jerusalem,  and  that  mis- 
sionary efforts  have  been  carried  on  among  the  Jews 
abroad,  and  a  missionary  colony  of  converted  Jews  esta- 
blished at  home.  Yet  it  is  not  in  great  eff'orts  like  these, 
but  in  smaller  acts  of  kindliness,  whensoever  they  come  in 
contact  with  our  civilization,  that  we  may  attempt  to  prove 
our  religion  by  our  acts.  In  England,  at  least,  we  have 
done  a  great  deal  in  this  direction  by  admitting  them  to 
social  and  municipal  rights.  For,  verily,  we  are  great 
debtors  to  them  for  the  shameful  persecutions  which 
Christians  have  exercised  towards  them  in  the  middle 
ages.  History  records  no  massacre  more  ruthless  than 
that  slaughter  of  the  Jews  which  was  committed  on  the 
Rhine  by  the  hordes  of  savages  who  went  forth  under  the 
banner  of  the  Cross  to  fight  in  the  first  crusade;  and  there 


134  SERMON    IV. 

is  no  one  here  who  lias  not  read  the  sad  story  of  the  ex- 
pulsion of  the  Hebrew  people  from  the  Spanish  peninsula.* 
That  is  a  thrilling  narrative  in  history,  the  scene  of  "which 
is  laid  on  the  banks  of  the  Loire,  which  presents  to  our 
imagination  the  picture  of  a  whole  people,  with  their  wives 
and  little  ones,  crossing  the  broad  stream  to  escape  the 
tyranny  which  they  dreaded  ;t  but  there  is  something  still 
more  sad,  and  that  touches  the  human  sympathies  with  a 
keener  sense  of  shame,  in  the  sight  of  yon  people  landed 
on  the  seashore  of  Morocco,  homeless,  tentless,  starving, 
driven  forth  from  the  towns  which  had  been  their  homes, 
to  wander  over  the  earth,  until  death  should  release  them 
from  their  woe.  There  is  something  in  the  emigration  of 
the  heroic  people  of  La  Vendee  which  we  can  look  upon 
with  admiration,  for  they  are  themselves  the  authors  of  the 
stern  resolve  to  forsake  forever  the  fastnesses  where  they 
can  be  no  longer  free  ;  and  they  march,  cheered  with  the 
hope  of  obtaining  the  protection  of  that  flag,  which,  float 
where  it  may,  marks  out  the  home  of  the  free  and  the 
refuge  for  the  oppressed.  But,  oh !  there  is  not  one  ray 
of  light  or  of  hope  to  illuminate  the  dark  scene  of  the  ex- 
pulsion of  the  Jews  from  the  garden-like  valleys  of  the 
Peninsula,  wdiich  had  been  associated  with  the  golden  age 
of  their  modern  history,  when  they  were  driven  forth 
against  their  will,  with  their  honest  industry  snatched  from 
them,  expelled  for  no  offence,  the  victims  of  priestly  big- 
otry, wanderers  without  a  friend  or  a  shelter.  Think  you 
not  that,  as  the  thousands  of  them  yielded  up  their  lives 
in  that  sad  emigration,  under  the  force  of  hunger,  of  heat, 

*  The  narratives  may  be  found  in  Milman's  "Hist,  of  Jews." 
f  The  migration  of  the  people  of  La  Vendee.     See  Alison's  "  Eu- 
rope" (first  series),  ch.  12. 


ON   JEWISH   LITERATURE.  135 

or  of  toil,  there  ascended  with  their  parting  breath  into 
the  ear  of  a  God  of  mercy,  a  cry  of  vengeance  against  the 
land  and  the  people  that  had  sent  them  forth  ?  Think  you 
not  that  every  effort  of  those  who  profess  the  faith  of  those 
persecutors  to  wipe  out  and  atone  by  kindness  for  the 
cruelty  of  those  who  called  themselves  by  the  name  of 
Christ,  must  be  well-pleasing  to  that  Being,  who  spent  His 
life  in  sympathy,  whose  last  prayer  was  for  His  enemies, 
and  who,  though  enthroned  within  the  Shechinah  of  eter- 
nal glory,  is  still,  in  all  the  strength  of  human  sympathies, 
touched  with  the  feeling  of  human  infirmity  ? 

We  cannot  penetrate  the  darkness  which  overhangs  the 
coming  history  of  God's  ancient  people  ;  we  cannot  venture 
to  predict  that  our  efforts  to  impart  to  them  our  civilization 
and  our  religion  shall  be  successful ;  we  can,  however,  rest 
certain  that  it  is  our  duty  to  endeavor  to  make  them  par- 
ticipate in  these  blessings.  Yet  the  eye  of  hope,  if  it  reads 
truly  the  unfulfilled  prophecies  which  affect  their  race, 
cannot  but  think  that  the  Jews  are  still  reserved  for  a 
glorious  destiny.  It  would  seem  that  by  some  mighty 
impulse,  and  at  some  mysterious  signal,  their  scattered 
tribes  shall  arise  from  the  mountains,  and  valleys,  and 
islands  of  the  earth,  and  hasten  to  recognize  the  long- 
expected  Christ.  Yes  !  their  Messiah  shall  one  day  come 
to  them,  but  not  in  the  clouds  of  heaven.  With  the  still 
small  voice  of  conscience  and  of  his  spirit.  He  shall  mani- 
fest himself  to  their  souls.  Each  of  them  shall  see,  as  it 
were,  the  vision  which  Isaiah  saw,  "  the  Lord  high  and 
lifted  up,"  the  radiant  form  of  Jesus  throned  in  the  fire 
and  cloud,  attended  by  the  song  of  the  seraphim,  revealed 
to  the  eye  of  the  soul ;  and,  looking  by  faith  on  him  whom 
they  have  pierced,  they  shall  recognize  in  him  their  long- 
expected  Christ.     And  as  their  hearts  sink  within  them  at 


136  SERMON    IV. 

the  thought,  and  as  each  exclaims,  "  Woe  is  me,  for  I  am 
undone  ;  for  I  am  a  man  of  unclean  lips,"  the  seraph  shall 
be  sent  forth  with  a  live  coal  to  declare  that  their  iniquity 
is  pardoned,  and  that  their  sin  is  covered. 

2.  Finally,  our  subject  is  not  without  a  lesson  to  our- 
selves. For  though  our  earthly  mission  may  not  be  towards 
the  Jews,  each  of  us  has  a  duty  to  perform  in  the  world, 
and  the  vision  of  Isaiah  opens  up  to  us  the  spirit  in  which 
alone  we  can  seek  to  perform  it  rightly. 

There  is  no  spot  on  earth  where  a  larger  number  of  men 
of  noble  hopes  or  of  high  principle  are  gathered  than  in 
this  University.  And  they  who  make  it  their  business  to 
gain  the  confidence  of  those  whom  they  are  privileged  to 
instruct,  well  know  that  in  the  hearts  of  many  students 
there  dwells  a  deep  and  earnest  wish  to  make  their  life  here 
the  means  of  preparation  for  a  life  of  usefulness  hereafter. 
Before  many  years  are  past,  each  one  of  us  must  go  forth 
into  the  world  to  influence  it  or  to  be  influenced  by  it.  It 
will  then  lie  in  the  power  of  each  one  to  do  something, 
however  little,  for  God  and  for  goodness.  Amid  the 
squalid  thousands  of  our  crowded  towns,  or  in  the  retire- 
ment of  the  rural  chapelry  ;  amid  the  infection  of  hospitals, 
or  bending  over  the  bed  of  poverty;  amid  the  scenes  of 
ordinary  life,  and  in  acts  of  common  philanthropy,  we  may 
seek  to  work  the  work  of  Christ.  But  if  we  would  be  the 
means  of  doing  so,  we  must  not  take  our  religious  tone 
from  the  world,  but  must  introduce  into  society  some  in- 
gredient of  goodness  which  it  does  not  possess.  That 
ingredient  comes  down  from  heaven.  It  is  the  power  of 
God's  Spirit  Avhich  alone  can  give  it  us.  It  is  He  alone 
who  can  kindle  in  our  souls  the  flame  of  love  which  shall 
burn  with  inextinguishable  glory  for  His  honor  and  man's 
welfare.     And  the  way  to  obtain   that  Divine  help  is  the 


ON  JEWISH  litp:rature.  137 

same  as  in  the  case  of  Isaiah  of  old.  We  must  contrast 
our  unworthiness  with  the  Divine  purity,  and  learn  to  drop 
the  tear  of  penitence,  and  pour  out  day  by  day,  from  our 
inmost  hearts,  the  cry:  "Woe  is  me,  for  I  am  undone;  for 
I  am  a  man  of  unclean  lips,  and  I  dwell  in  the  midst  of  a 
people  of  unclean  lips."  And  as  soon  as  we  shall  have 
done  this,  the  seraphim  will  be  commissioned  to  take  the 
live  coal  from  the  altar  of  incense,  and  to  touch  our  lips. 
It  is  from  the  altar  that  the  seraph  brings  the  coal.  It  is 
not  for  our  sake  merely  that  God  is  merciful,  but  because 
there  is  an  altar  of  incense  in  His  presence ;  and  our 
prayers,  mixed  with  that  incense  of  our  Saviour's  interces- 
sion, rise  up  as  a  memorial  before  God.  Unless  we  catch 
Isaiah's  spirit  we  cannot  be  prepared  for  the  prophetic 
work.  It  is  only  when  the  seraph  has  touched  our  lips, 
and  our  sins  are  cleansed,  that  we  can  hope  to  receive  the 
preparation  which  shall  fit  us  for  our  ministrations  of  love. 
And  in  our  life  of  labor  let  us  ever  keep  before  us  the  sense 
of  our  unworthiness  and  of  God's  mercy  to  us  ;  and  then, 
when  life  draws  to  a  close,  if  we  stand  trembling  at  the 
thought  of  labors  apparently  useless,  and  lament  in  the 
words,  "Woe  is  me,  for  I  am  an  unclean  man,"  the  angel 
shall  be  again  commissioned  with  the  symbol  of  mercy  to 
cleanse  our  sins ;  and  our  purified  souls  shall  be  admitted 
to  see  the  Lord  high  and  lifted  up,  eye  to  eye,  spirit  to 
spirit,  and  to  join  in  the  seraph  song  of  "Holy,  Holy, 
Holy!"  

XOTE. 

Pp.  124  ei  seq.  The  Integrity  of  the  writings  of  Isaiah,  Zechariah, 
and  the  other  prophets  is  here  assumed  without  discussion,  as  it  is  not 
one  of  the  questions  in  dispute  with  the  Jewish  interpreters.  The 
Christology  of  the  Old  Testament,  to  which  allasion  is  made  in  this 
Sermon,  may  be  studied  in  Hengstenberg's  work  on  the  subject. 


SERMON    V. 

THE    DOCTRINE    OF    THE    HOLY    TRINITY. 

(PREACHED  BEFORE  THE   UNIVERSITY,  JUNE  20,  1858.) 


EPHESIANS    2:18. 

^''For  throxKjh  Him  tue  both  have  access  by  one  Sjnrit  vnto  the  Father^ 

The  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  which  the  Apostle 
implies  in  these  words,  is  the  centre  of  a  group  of  Christian 
doctrines  which  may  fairly  be  said  not  to  have  been  expli- 
citly known  antecedently  to  the  teachings  of  our  Saviour 
and  his  Apostles.  More  than  even  other  doctrines,  this 
had  hardly  been  guessed  at  by  heathen  speculation,  hardly 
understood  by  Jewish  inspiration.  It  stands  in  majestic 
isolation  from  other  truths,  a  vision  of  God  incomprehen- 
sible, the  mystery  of  mysteries.  We  can  find  analogies 
and  explanations  of  other  doctrines  in  the  world  of  nature, 
physical  or  moral,  but  of  this  we  can  discover  none.*  The 
existence  of  sin,  the  need  of  superhuman  aid,  the  salvation 

*  It  is  needless  perhaps  to  remark  that  attempts  have  been  made  to 
discover  trinal  analogies  in  nature,  such  as  the  threefold  dimension  of 
geometric  figure,  &c.  Such  attempts  were  made  in  the  Neo-Platonic 
School  of  Alexandria,  and  in  England  in  the  last  century.  Most  per- 
sons very  properly  reject  them  as  mystical  and  unreal. 


ON    THE   TRINITY.  139 

by  mediation,  the  dignity  of  sacrifice — all  these  truths, 
though  heightened  and  explained  by  revelation,  yet  are 
written  in  the  scheme  of  nature,  and  intertwined  with  the 
tissue  of  the  visible  creation.  But  when  we  transcend 
these,  and  pass  from  the  work  to  the  agent,  from  the 
government  of  God  to  the  mysterious  nature  of  God  Him- 
self, we  are  lost  in  mystery  ;  speculation  is  well-nigh 
hushed  before  the  overpowering  glory  of  the  Eternal. 
We  pass  from  the  earth  to  the  heaven,  we  enter  the  shrine 
of  the  Divine  presence.  We  contemplate  in  spirit  the 
mystery  hidden  of  old,  the  mystery  of  the  trinal  existence 
of  Him  who  is  the  source  of  all  power,  the  first  cause  of 
all  creation  ;  Him  who,  in  the  depths  of  a  past  eternity, 
existed  in  the  mysterious  solitude  of  his  Divine  essence, 
when  there  was  still  universal  silence  of  created  life 
around  His  throne,  and  who  will  exist  ever  in  the  future 
of  eternity,  from  everlasting  to  everlasting,  God. 

Speculation  is,  on  such  a  subject,  vain  ;  yet  a  reverent 
attention  to  that  which  has  been  made  known  to  us  is  our 
fitting  duty.  And  nothing  will  more  completely  prepare 
us  for  considering  the  subject  in  a  proper  temper  than  the 
reflection  that  this  great  doctrine  is  not  revealed  to  us  in 
the  Scripture  to  gratify  our  curiosity,  but  as  a  practical 
truth  deeply  and  nearly  related  to  our  eternal  interests, 
not  in  its  speculative  but  in  its  practical  aspects.  For 
you  should  carefully  note  that  the  doctrine  admits  of  these 
two  distinct  points  of  view.  It  may  be  looked  at  specu- 
latively, as  unfolding  the  nature  of  God  ;  and  then  it 
becomes  the  battle-ground  of  weary  controversy,  and  men 
doubt  it,  or  misunderstand  it,  or  add  to  it  in  the  hard 
logical  formulas  which  are  necessary  to  give  precision  to 
human  ideas  ;  or  it  may  be  looked  at  practically,  as  showing 
us  three  distinct  relations  which  God  is  pleased  to  sustain 


110  SERMON    V. 

towards  man,  and  three  corresponding  classes  of  duties 
which  man  is  under  obligation  to  perform  towards  God. 
This  latter,  or  the  practical  aspect,  is  the  view  under  which 
the  subject  is  presented  to  us  in  the  New  Testament;  the 
former,  or  the  theoretical  aspect,  is  that  under  which  it 
has  generally  been  regarded  in  the  history  of  the  Church. 
The  Bible  contains  the  practical  doctrine,  the  Athanasian 
Creed  the  speculative.  It  is  easy  to  perceive  that  the 
practical  view  is  immensely  the  more  useful ;  and  happy 
should  we  be  if  we  could  lay  aside  controversy,  and  simply 
believe.  But  we  can  never  hope  to  do  so ;  and,  therefore, 
it  becomes  important  to  form  to  ourselves  definite  views  on 
the  speculative  controversy,  for  we  cannot,  in  this  age, 
receive  the  kingdom  of  God  literally  as  little  children. 
We  cannot,  if  we  would,  ignore  the  controversies  which 
have  gathered  round  Christian  doctrines  in  the  course  of 
eighteen  centuries ;  we  cannot  think  of  those  doctrines 
apart  from  the  ideas  which  have  crystallized  together  with 
them.  We  cannot  think  on  all  subjects  of  life  and  science 
with  the  healthy,  critical,  inductive  spirit  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  for  six  days  of  the  week,  and  lay  aside  our 
habits  of  thought  in  the  church  on  Sundays,  to  receive 
truths  with  the  simplicity  of  Jewish  believers,  or  the  reve- 
rence of  mediaeval  mystics.  We  gaze  on  the  rays  of  truth 
which  come  forth  from  the  eternal  source  of  glory  in 
Christ  and  from  the  Pentecostal  fire  ;  but  those  rays  come 
to  us  piercing  through  the  distance  of  eighteen  centuries, 
tinged  in  their  passage  through  the  mists  of  human  thought; 
and  we  cannot  hope  to  view  them  in  their  purity,  without 
using  rational  means  to  deprive  them  of  their  tinge  of 
color,  and  to  destroy  the  width  of  their  refractions. 

And,  therefore,  I  should  hope  that  we  shall  not  misem- 
ploy our  time  on  the  present  occasion,  if  we  restrict  our 


ON   THE   TRINITY.  141 

attention  to  the  speculative  side  of  this  great  doctrine.  It 
is  possible  to  make  it  clear,  perhaps  also  to  make  it  inter- 
esting. And  we  shall  he  likely  to  secure  both  results  if  we 
sketch  briefly  the  progress  of  thought  in  reference  to  this 
doc^.rine  through  the  Christian  history,  noting  one  or  two 
great  epochs,  when  Christendom  has  been  agitated  by  the 
controversies  respecting  it ;  controversies  which  have  left 
their  impress  on  succeeding  ages,  and  live  still  in  the  hearts, 
if  not  in  the  creeds,  of  men  and  churches. 

We  must  assume  (for  in  the  few  minutes  of  the  present 
discourse  we  cannot  pause  to  prove  it)  that  our  Blef^sed 
Lord  taught,  and  that  the  Apostles  intended  to  convey  the 
doctrine,  that  the  Divine  nature  consists  of  three  distinct 
classes  of  attributes,  or  (to  use  our  human  expression)  three 
personalities  ;*  and  that  each  of  these  three  distinct  Per- 
sons contributes  separate  offices  in  the  work  of  human  sal- 
vation ;  God  the  Father  pardoning ;  God  the  Son  redeem- 
ing ;  God  the  Holy  Ghost  hallowing  and  purifying  sinful 
men. 

This  doctrine  can,  I  believe,  be  proved  distinctly  from 
the  New  Testament;  and  history  can  be  added  as  an 
attestation  to  show  that  it  was  the  primitive  teaching  of  the 

*  Personaliti/,  as  is  well  known,  is  the  translation  of  the  term 
vn6(TTa<7i5.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  remark  that  the  writer  of  this 
Sermon  does  not  intend — by  the  use  of  cautious  modes  of  statement, 
such  as  the  one  which  is  here  given  in  the  text,  and  similar  ones  which 
occur  afterwards — to  favor  the  Sabellian  theory  of  the  Trinity,  which 
made  the  distinction  of  the  three  persons  to  be  subjective  instead  of 
objective-,  distinctions  in  the  mode  of  God'^  revealing  himself  to  man, 
instead  of  real  distinctions  in  the  Divine  nature.  Such  a  theory  is 
precisely  an  instance  of  those  very  attempts  to  venture  beyond  the 
teaching  of  Scripture,  against  which  this  Sermon  is  designed  as  a 
protest. 


142  SERMON    V. 

Church.*  Nor  does  it  seem  that  for  two  centuries  and  a 
half  any  doubts  were  felt  on  the  question.  Christian  doc- 
trines were,  indeed,  during  those  two  centuries,  brought 
into  contact  with  heathenism,  and  many  of  them  underwent 
free  criticism  ;  but  controversy  did  not  invade  the  doctrine 
of  the  mysterious  existence  of  the  Holy  Trinity.  It  was  in 
Egypt  that  the  controversy  awoke,  in  the  city  of  Alex- 
andria,— that  city,  planted  by  the  Greeks,  which  was  at 
once  a  mart  of  commerce  and  a  scat  of  learning;  the 
meeting-point  of  East  and  West,  alike  in  manners,  in 
religion,  in  philosophy.  It  may  seem  unfit  to  bring  before 
you  historical  allusions  which  might  be  judged  ill-suited  to 
the  pulpit,  but  the  truth  is  that  no  one  can,  without  know- 
ledge on  this  subject,  understand  the  Athanasian  Creed, 
which  we  occasionally  repeat,  and  which,  when  we  do  un- 
derstand it,  you  will  perhaps  agree  with  me,  there  is  no 
cause  to  wish  to  have  removed  from  our  service  books ;  and 
also  there  is  another  reason  which  it  were  affectation  to 
ignore,  w^hich  may  justify  me  in  touching  on  this  subject. 
Any  one  who  knows  our  popular  literature  will  be  aware 
that  within  recent  years  the  thoughts  of  those  old  Alex- 
andrian thinkers,  who  fought  against  our  holy  religion,  and 
who  forced  upon  Athanasius  and  the  noble  band  of  Chris- 
tian defenders  the  very  weapon  of  logical  terms  by  ^vhich 
they  sought  to  overthrow  it,  have  been  made  familiar  in 
some  of  the  most  talented  works  of  fiction  which  our  age 
has  known.  One  of  the  most  brilliant  minds  which  Ens;- 
land's  church  can  boast  at  this  moment'!'  has  consecrated 

*  Perhaps  the  most  complete  statement  of  the  evidence  in  favor  of 
the  doctrine  of  a  Trinity  is  to  be  found  in  Yogan's  "  Bampton  Lec- 
tures." 

t  Rev.  C.  Kingsley,  Jr.  See  especially  his  "  Hypatia ;"  and  also  his 
"Lectures  on  the  Philosophers  of  Alexandria."' 


ON    THE    TRINITY.  143 

his  great  powers  of  imagination  ±o  portray  the  character 
and  reproduce  the  thoughts  of  that  martyred  woman,  in 
whose  death  the  heathen  system  of  philosophy  in  Egypt 
was  extinguished  ;  and,  therefore,  in  alluding  to  such  sub- 
jects I  may  fairly  presume  that  you  are  not  strangers  to 
them;  in  fact,  I  am  only  carrying  out  a  practice  to  which 
our  sermons  ought  really  to  conform,  of  conveying  religious 
information  addressed  to  the  thoughts  of  common  life,  just 
as  lessons  on  religious  duties  ought  to  be  adapted  to  the 
difficulties  of  ordinary  employments. 

It  was  from  about  the  3d  to  the  6th  century  of  the 
Christian  era,  in  a  time  when  the  storm  of  war  or  civil 
commotion  had  almost  destroyed  the  other  great  seats  of 
education,  that  the  Greek  University  at  Alexandria  offered 
a  retirement  for  the  thoughtful  and  the  speculative.  It 
was  then  that  there  arose  a  school  of  philosophers  (vul- 
garly called  Neo-Platonists)  who  combined  Eastern  and 
Western  modes  of  thought.  Inheriting  from  the  Greek 
thinker,  Plato,  that  power  to  mount  into  the  world  of 
abstractions,  that  power  of  transcendent  genius  which  led 
him  to  outstrip  his  age,  and  almost  to  think,  as  it  were,  in 
modern  ideas  ;'^  they  also  inherited  the  Pantheistic  spirit, 

*  This  modern  aspect  of  Plato  is  usually  thought  to  exist,  not  merely 
in  the  political  problems  which  occur  in  his  treatises  of  the  "  Republic" 
and  "Laws,"  but  mainly  in  his  contrast  between  the  fixity  of  the  povjisvov 
or  iSea,  known  by  the  reason,  and  the  fleeting  character  of  the  (pawdjxevov, 
known  by  the  senses ;  which,  translated  into  the  language  of  modern 
philosophy,  is  the  contrast  between  the  immutability  of  Nature's  laws 
and  the  mutability  of  Nature's  phenomena.  This  modern  aspect  is, 
however,  more  apparent  than  real.  In  truth,  all  Greek  philosophy, 
anterior  to  the  Stoics,  is  ancient ;  and  the  forms  under  which  it  was 
presented  by  its  authors  are  more  or  less  obsolete.  It  was  in  them  that 
the  modern  element  was  first  developed.  It  is  gratifying  to  be  able  to 
reter  to  one  work  in  which  the  historic  development  of  philosophical 


144  SERMON    V. 

which  had  outlived  the  d^cay  of  the  old  Hieratic  system  of 
Egypt,  and  the  mystic,  allegorizing  tendency,  which, 
springing  up  in  the  East,  and  raised  into  a  system  by 
Philo,*  was  the  means  of  distorting  plain  truths  of  fact  or 
of  doctrine  into  mystical  meanings  which  their  authors 
intended  not.  This  school  of  thinkers  denied  the  preten- 
sions of  Christianity  to  be  a  Divine  revelation,  and  attempted 
to  establish  philosophy  as  a  rival  to  its  claims.  They  were 
not  the  first  enemies  that  Christianity  had  encountered,  but 
they  were  the  first  educated  men  who  had  carefully  exa- 
mined and  rejected  its  claims.  Their  historyf  may  be  told 
in  a  few  words,  though  it  embraces  about  three  centuries, 
commencing  approximately  from  the  year  a.d.  200.  It 
divides  itself  into  three  epochs.  In  the  first,  the  move- 
ment was  a  metaphysical  speculation ;  in  the  second,  a 
political  organization ;  in  the  third,  a  logical  system.  J 
During  about  a  century  and  a  half,  the  ideas  were  gra- 
dually evolved  from  those  miscellaneous  sources  which  I 
have  just  now  indicated.     Piotinus  is  the  great  writer  of 


thought  is  really  kept  in  view, — viz.,  Sir  Alexander  Grant's  edition  of 
Aristotle's  '"Ethics"  (especially  vol.  i) ;  and  his  "Essay  on  the  Stoics," 
in  the  "Oxford  Essays  for  1858." 

*  Probably,  however,  Philo  did  not  stand  alone,  but  was  merely  one 
of  a  school,  of  which  the  other  writers  are  now  lost.  See  the  essay  on 
the  Philosophy  of  Philo,  in  vol.  i  of  Professor  Jowett's  work  on  "  St. 
Paul's  Epistles." 

f  The  materials  for  their  history,  besides  the  study  of  their  writings, 
and  of  Creuzer's  Proleg.  to  Plotinus's  Ennead.,  are  to  be  found  in 
Gibbon  (''Decline  and  Fall,"  ch.  28);  in  the  two  works  by  King.sloy, 
to  which  reference  has  been  already  made ;  in  Lewes's  "  Biographical 
Hist,  of  Philosophy;"  in  Maurice's  "Hist,  of  Philosophy;"  and  in 
Donaldson's  "Hist,  of  Gr.  Lit."  (ch.  53,  57.) 

J  The  first  movement  is  from  about  a.d.  200-300 ;  the  second, 
3G0-3G3  ;  the  third,  303-550. 


ON   TTTK   TRINITY.  145 

this  first  phase  of  the  intellectual  movement;  and  the  wide 
effects  of  it  may  be  seen  even  within  the  precincts  of  the 
Christian  church  in  the  system  of  G  nosticism.  The  second, 
or  the  political  movement,  is  contracted  to  the  narrow  space 
of  the  reign  of  the  Emperor  Julian.  It  was  the  attempt 
to  carry  out  the  views  of  these  unbelievers  by  political 
measures  which  must  ever  give  an  historic  interest  to  the 
brief,  the  brilliant  reign  of  that  emperor.  Educated  in  the 
opinions  of  these  philosophers,  and  fortified  with  an  intense 
dislike  to  Christianity,  Julian  felt  that  it  was  not  enough 
to  persecute  our  holy  religion,  but  that  an  attempt  must  be 
made  to  disprove  it,  as  well  as  political  inducement  held 
out  for  uprooting  it.  The  sudden  death  of  Julian  in  the 
Parthian  wars  put  an  end  to  this  system ;  and  it  was  not 
merely  in  vexation,  but  in  the  despairing  conviction  that 
his  death  would  cut  short  the  great  object  of  his  life,  and 
that  Christianity  would  henceforth  triumph  unimpeded, 
that,  when  wounded  in  the  battle-field,  he  died,  exclaiming, 
"Thou  hast  conquered,  0  Galilean!"  Such  was  the  fate 
of  the  political  movement.  The  third  phase  of  existence 
of  the  school  to  which  I  have  alluded  is  found  when,  in  the 
century  after  the  death  of  Julian,  Proclus  attempted  to 
recommend  his  ideas  to  the  convictions  of  men  by  investing 
them  with  the  rigor  of  a  logical  system. 

It  will  be  sufficient  to  have  indicated  thus  much  of  their 
history. 

Now  among  the  many  doctrines  which  this  school  of 
•philosophers  assailed,  one  of  the  principal  was  the  doctrine 
of  the  Holy  Trinity.  They  did  not  attempt  to  deny  it ; 
but  they  tried  to  show  that  it  was  only  an  imperfect  attempt 
to  express  that  which  their  science  could  detect  by  un- 
assisted reason,  viz.,  that  Deity  must  exist  in  three  states, 
— as  simple  existence, — as  intelligent  existence, — and  as 


146  SERMON    V. 

active  creative  existence.*  The  first  Avas  the  Father ;  the 
second,  the  Word ;  the  third,  the  Spirit.  Thus,  to  them 
the  Christian  doctrine  was  no  new  truth :  it  was  rather  a 
formula  of  which  they  professed  to  be  able  to  suggest  a 
better  interpretation. 

IIow  then  did  the  Church  of  that  age  meet  this  view  ? 
It  met  it  by  reasserting  the  doctrine  as  it  conceived  the 
Apostles  to  have  communicated  it.  It  professed  that  in- 
stead of  attempting  to  penetrate  the  depths  of  the  Infinite 
Mind,  it  was  content  to  rest  in  what  was  revealed  ;  that 
instead  of  trying  to  know  God  that  it  might  love  Him,  the 
Church  sought  to  love  God  that  it  might  know  Him.  Yet 
obliged  to  meet  this  scepticism  with  a  definite  statement, 
it  was  compelled  to  array  the  truths  of  revelation  in  the 
precise  dogmas  of  technical  philosophy;  and  so  it  gave 
expression  to  its  thoughts  in  the  Athanasian  Creed.  It  is 
almost  certain  indeed  that  that  formula  was  not  the  com- 
position of  the  heroic  Christian  apologist  whose  name,  it 
bears.  It  probably  originated  in  Southern  France  in  the 
fifth  century,  but  it  entirely  gave  expression  to  the  thoughts 
of  orthodox  Christendom. f  And  it  is  in  reference  to  its 
age  that  its  value  must  be  tested.  I  may  be  permitted  to 
say,  that  I  can  have  no  sympathy  with  those  who  would 
tear  it  from  our  Prayer-book,  because  they  test  it  by  our 
modern  ideas,  and  examine  it  apart  from  its  historical 
position.  The  man  would  be  despised  who,  looking  on  one 
of  the  crude  works  which  marked  the  first  revival  of  Art, 
should  persist  in  criticising  those  attempts  by  perfect, 
modern  styles,  and  who  could  not  appreciate  the  efforts 
observable  to   throw   off  the   stiffness  which  cramped   the 

^'  These  are  explained  in  a  creditable  manner  in  Lewes's  ''  Biographi- 
cal History  of  Philosophy." 

t  See  Waterland's  'Tritical  TTistorv  nftho  Athanasian  Treed." 


ON    THE    TRINITY.  147 

early  movement,  and  to  gain  a  knowledge  of  correct  form, 
of  delicate  modelling,  of  true  shading,  of  natural  coloring, 
because  they  do  not  accord  with  the  modern  standard  of 
attainment.  We  should  claim  that  those  works  must  be 
estimated  by  the  light  of  the  age  in  Avhich  they  were  pro- 
duced. Similarly,  surely,  the  Athanasian  Creed  ought  to 
be  estimated  in  reference  to  the  circumstances  which  created 
it.  It  was  the  Church  compelled  to  arm  itself  in  the 
weapons  of  logic  used  by  its  assailants.  It  is  not  the  form 
in  which  the  Church  would  have  preferred  to  record  its 
faith  ;*  and  when  we  still  use  it,  we  read  it  as  an  historic 
memorial,  a  protest  against  heresies  once  prevalent  and 
analogically  applicable  to  ourselves  ;  the  vigorous  expres- 
sion of  belief  of  men  who  lived  and  strove  for  the  faith 
which  they  loved  unto  the  death. 

With  these  remarks  we  may  leave  the  consideration  of 
those  early  controversies  of  the  Trinity, — controversies 
which  however  I  shall  show  in  the  sequel  have  been 
recently  revived,  and  pass  on  to  the  consideration  of 
another,  which  still  numbers  many  adherents, — the  rise  of 
Socinianism  at  the  time  of  the  Reformation. 

A  thousand  years  separate  these  two  great  crises  of  in- 
tellectual speculation.  When  the  latter  of  the  two  arose, 
Europe  Avas  no  longer  the  same.     The  old  centres  of  civil- 

*  This  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  the  creeds  became  more 
complex  as  the  interval  which  separated  them  from  the  Apostles'  time 
increased.  The  earliest  creed,  perhaps,  is  in  St.  Paul's  first  Epistle  to 
Corinth  (15  :  3-8).  The  next  is  the  creed  which  was  proposed  and 
rejected  in  the  Council  of  Nica^a ;  the  next  is  the  creed  actually  adopted  ; 
the  next  is  the  one  adopted  by  the  Council  of  Constantinople  (a.d.  381), 
which  is  the  one  which  now  passes  under  the  name  of  the  "  Nicene 
Creed  ;"  the  next  is  the  Athanasian.  The  authority  for  some  of  these 
latter  statements  is  the  historian  Socrates. 


148  SERMON    V. 

ization   had   sliifted,  the  old  forms  of  government  had  va- 
nished ;  the  nations  had  changed,  the  very  languages  had 
disappeared.     One  power  alone  had  survived  the  deluge 
which  had  changed  the  face  of  Europe,  viz.,  Christianity. 
It  had  been  the  ark  of  refuge  through  that  deluge.     It  was 
now  to  have  its  claims  tested  by  the  busy  speculation  of  the 
new  world.     Nor  is  it  to  be  wondered  at,  that,  in  the  gene- 
ral dissolution  of  the  intellectual  and  religious  system  of 
the  middle  ages  which   we   call   the   Reformation,   spirits 
should  arise  to  explore  the  very  foundations  of  our  faith. 
It  was  at  this  time  accordingly  that  Sozini*  started  the 
theory  of  modern  Unitarianism,   by   attempting  to  show 
that  the  Apostles  had  not  really  taught  the  doctrine  of  the 
Holy  Trinity,  but  that,  on  the  contrarj^,  the  doctrine  had 
arisen  in  the  early  centuries,  in  the  course  of  controversy 
with  the  Alexandrian  philosophers.     I   shall  dwell  for  a 
few  moments   on  these  views,  because  they  still  linger  in 
society,   and   still    receive    acceptance  from  many.      The" 
arguments  which   are   adduced  in   denial  of  the  doctrine 
which  we  believe  that  the  Apostles  taught,  consist  partly 
in  a  critical  examination  of  Scripture  passages ;  but  still 
more  in  an  unconquerable  objection  to  the  doctrine  on  ac- 
count of  its  involving  a  mystery.      "How,"  urge    they, 
"  can  the  Divine  Being  exist  in  three  persons  and  in  one?" 
On  the   examination  of  Scripture  texts,  it  is  unnecessary 
now  to  say  anything  ;  but  I  wish  to  add  a  few  words  in 
reference  to  the  objection  that  the  doctrine  is  mysterious, 
because  it  may  have  frequently  suggested  itself  to  many 
of  you. 

The  fact  that  this  doctrine  involves  a  mystery,  is  so  far 

•■■'■  For  Socinus,  and  tlio  Raeovian  School  wliicli  aroijc  from  him,  see 
Ilallam'.s  '"  Hist,  of  Lit.,"  i,  oo2  :  ii,  .'}.")5. 


ON    THE   TRINITY.  149 

from  constituting  a  fair  ground  for  its  rejection,  that  it 
agrees  in  this  respect  with  many  of  the  most  allowed  truths 
of  human  science.  For  the  distinction  is  now  well  under- 
stood between  a  truth  being  apprehended  and  its  being 
compreJiended.  We  apprehend  or  recognize  a  fact  \\hen 
we  know  it  to  be  established  by  evidence,  but  cannot 
explain  it  by  referring  it  to  its  cause ;  we  comprehend  or 
understand  it  when  we  can  view  it  in  relation  to  its  cause. 
A  thing  which  is  not  apprehended  cannot  be  believed,  but 
the  analogy  of  our  knowledge  shows  that  we  believe  many 
things  which  we  cannot  explain  or  resolve  into  a  law.  We 
know  the  law  of  attraction  which  regulates  the  motions  of 
the  visible  universe ;  but  no  one  can  yet  explain  the  nature 
of  the  attractive  power  which  acts  according  to  this  law; 
or,  to  add  an  example  from  the  world  of  organized  nature, 
we  may  see  the  same  truth  in  the  animal  or  vegetable  king- 
doms. We  know  not  in  what  consist  the  common  phe- 
nomena of  sleep  or  of  life  ;  and  we  are  equally  ignorant  of 
the  final  causes  which  have  led  the  Creator  to  lavish  his 
gifts  in  creating  thousands  of  species  of  the  lower  orders  of 
animals  with  few  properties  of  enjoyment  or  of  use ;  or  to 
scatter  in  the  unseen  parts  of  the  petals  of  flowers  the  pro- 
fusion of  beautiful  colors.  In  truth,  the  peculiarity  of 
modern  inductive  science  is  that  it  professes  to  explain 
nothing.  It  rests  content  with  generalizing  phenomena 
into  their  most  comprehensive  statement,  and  there  it 
pauses;  it  in  no  case  connects  them  with  an  ultimate  cause. 
And  if  truths  are  thus  received  undoubtingly  in  science 
when  yet  they  cannot  be  explained,  why  must  an  ante- 
cedent determination  to  disbelieve  mystery  in  religion  be 
allowed  to  outweigh  any  amount  of  positive  evidence  which 
can  be  adduced  to  substantiate  those  mysteries.* 

^''  It  is  fair  to  state  that  the  antecedent  objections  which  are  urijefl 

13- 


150  SERMON    V. 

We  have  now  noticed  the  two  great  attacks  on  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Holy  Trinity  which  have  been  marked  in  his- 
tory; the  first,  that  which  accepted  the  Trinity,  but  ex- 
plained it  away ;  the  other,  that  which  denied  the  doctrine 
on  the  ground  of  its  mystery.  Yet  the  subject  would 
hardly  be  complete  if  I  were  not  to  notice  with  a  brief 
allusion  the  fact  that  an  attempt  has  arisen  in  Christian 
writers  during  the  present  century,  alike  in  Germany  and 
in  England,  to  revive  speculations,  similar  to  those  of  the 
old  philosophers  of  Alexandria,  in  defence  of  this  great 
doctrine.  One  honored  layman,  whose  influence  was  great 
equally  in  letters  and  theology  during  the  first  thirty  years 
of  this  century,  poet,  critic,  philosopher,  theologian  alike,* 
has  been  the  parent  mind  of  a  school  of  earnest  and  deep 
thinkers,  of  whom  some  are  gathered  to  their  home  above, 
some  still  live  to  serve  the  Church  on  earth.    It  ill  becomes 

against  the  doctrine  are  of  two  distinct  kinds:  (1st),  arising  from  the 
unwillingness  to  believe  a  thing  incomprehensible,  which  is  the  one 
refuted  in  the  text;  (2d)j  arising  from  the  impossibility  of  accepting  a 
truth  contradictoiy  to  reason,  in  believing  three  persons  to  be  one,  and 
one  to  be  three,  at  one  and  the  same  time.  This  latter  objection  is  of 
course  reasonable  in  itself,  but  incorrect  in  its  application ;  inasmuch 
as  this  is  not  the  Scripture  account  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  but 
the  clumsy  and  self-contradictory  statement  of  unintelligent  advocates 
of  it. 

''''  S.  T.  Coleridge.  A  little  book  exists  on  the  effects  of  Coleridge  on 
theology,  entitled  ''Modern  Anglican  Theology,  by  the  Rev.  J.  H.  Rigg." 
The  friends  of  the  writers  whom  he  has  criticised  will  naturally  consider 
the  book  very  unfair.  They  look  at  the  works  through  the  writers  of 
them,  Mr.  Rigg  looks  at  the  writers  through  their  works ;  hence  he  has 
certainly,  in  most  cases,  especially  in  that  of  Mr.  Jowett,  presented  a 
caricature  of  those  whose  works  he  discusses  ;  and  has  not  unfrequcntly 
imputed  to  them  as  positive  teachings  ideas  which  are  only  to  be  found 
in  their  writings  as  incipient  tendencies  ;  but  in  spite  of  these  and  other 
defects  the  book  is  instructive. 


ON    THE    TRINITY.  161 

i 

SO  young  a  student  as  myself  to  criticise  those  views  ;  it 
must  suffice  to  liave  named  them.  I  may  venture,  how- 
ever, with  all  humility,  to  remark  that  they  do  not  appear 
to  me  to  convey  any  help  towards  elucidating  this  great 
doctrine ;  nevertheless,  if  others  find  that  they  afford  them 
support,  I  would  be  the  last  to  tear  from  them  the  reed  on 
which  they  support  themselves,  frail  though  I  fear  it  to  be. 
Having  now  completed  the  brief  history  of  this  great 
doctrine,  having  seen  what  we  are  not  to  believe,  let  us 
turn  in  conclusion  to  see  what  we  ought  to  believe  of  the 
nature  of  God,  and  what  the  lessons  are  which  we  should 
carry  away  from  the  consideration  of  it. 

We  have  asserted  that  we  are  to  believe  that  the  Divine 
nature  exists  under  three  entirely  distinct  classes  of  re- 
lations, which  through  poverty  of  language  w^e  call  exist- 
ence in  three  Persons.  We  must  be  careful,  however, 
when  we  assert  this,  not  to  reduce  the  Divine  nature  to 
similarity  with  the  human,  not  to  commit,  in  fact,  almost 
the  very  error  into  which  men  of  old  fell  in  supposing  that 
the  God  whom  the  heaven  of  heavens  cannot  contain  is  like 
to  birds  and  beasts  and  creeping  things.  The  Divine 
Being  is  three  Persons ;  but  by  this  we  only  mean  that  the 
personal  element  in  man  is  the  analogy  under  which  God 
has  been  pleased  to  convey  to  us  ideas  of  His  own  nature 
and  of  the  relations  which  He  sustains  to  us.  Revelation, 
when  teaching  truths  of  the  world  unseen,  must  of  necessity 
be  compelled  to  present  them  by  comparison  Avith  things 
that  are  known.  It  must,  therefore,  select  its  illustrations 
either  from  the  world  of  matter  which  is  known  to  us 
througli  the  senses,  or  the  world  of  mind  and  feeling  known 
to  us  through  consciousness.  And  thus  to  a  sensuous 
people  like  the  ancient  Jews,  God  was  represented  as 
having  arms  and  hands,  or  as  being  swayed   by  human 


152  SERMON    V. 

passion,  by  anger,  hate,  repentance ;  and  to  Christians, 
God  is  described,  in  that  religion  which  was  to  cominend 
itself  to  the  more  civilized  nations  of  Europe,  as  having  the 
higher  qualities  of  mind,  and  as  invested  with  the  ineradi- 
cable and  mysterious  attribute  of  personality.* 

Yet,  though  the  conception  is  far  nobler  than  the  old 
Jewish  view,  we  must  not  allow  ourselves  to  suppose  that 
it  is  more  literally  true.  Just  as  we  do  not  attribute  to 
God  a  body  of  human  passions,  but  merely  mean  that  He 
acts  to  us  as  though  He  possessed  them ;  so  when  we  at- 
tribute to  Him  thought  or  personality,  we  must  not  narrow 
down  the  idea  of  his  omniscient  intuition  by  supposing  it 
contracted  within  the  limits  of  inference  which  govern 
man's  finite  intelligence,  or  gifted  with  that  limited  inde- 
pendence which  appertains  to  human  personality.  The 
discoveries  of  science  ought  to  teach  us  that  we  really  can 
scarcely  form  any  positive  idea  of  God's  nature. f  If  we 
track  the  infinity  of  creation,  we  see  that  each  increased 
power  of  our  instruments  reveals  to  us  illimitable  profusion 
in  creation ;  the  telescope  revealing  the  troop  of  worlds 
stretching  to  an  infinity  of  greatness,  and  the  microscope 
a  world  of  more  and  more  minute  life,  stretching  to  an  in- 
finity of  minuteness ;  or  when  we  turn  from  the  infinite  in 
space  to  the  infinite  in  time,  if  we  look  backward  we  see 
written  in  the  rocks  of  the  world  the  signs  of  creative  life 

'^  The  view  here  advocated  is  an  extension  to  the  doctrine  of  the 
Divine  nature,  of  the  interpretation  of  the  subject  of  analogy,  which 
was  applied  by  Archbishop  King  to  the  subject  of  predestination.  See 
Whately's  edition  of  King's  Sermon;  Copleston's  "Discourses  on  Pre- 
destination." 

f  The  impossibility  that  a  mind,  constituted  as  the  human  mind  is, 
should  employ  itself  successfully  in  speculations  on  the  subject  of  in- 
linity,  has  been  developed  from  another  (the  psychological)  point  of 
view  in  Mr.  Hansel's  "Bampton  Lectures.'' 


ON    THE   TRINITY.  153 

stretching  through  ages  anterior  to  human  history  ;  or  if 
we  look  forward,  we  can  detect  by  delicate  mathematical 
calculation  an  amazing  scheme  of  Providence  providing  for 
the  conservation  of  harmony  in  the  attractions  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  in  cycles  of  incalculable  time  in  the  distant 
future.  And  when,  having  pondered  all  these  things,  we 
think  of  the  Being  that  has  arranged  them  by  His  provi- 
dence and  conserves  them  by  His  power,  what  notion  can 
we  really  form  of  His  nature  ?  What  notion  of  the  won- 
derful originality  evinced  in  the  conception  of  creation, 
what  of  the  profusion  shown  in  the  execution  of  it,  what  of 
the  power  in  its  conservation  ?  His  nature  is  not  merely 
infinite,  it  is  unlike  anything  human,  and  we  must  turn 
away  with  the  feeling  that  when  we  compare  that  infinite 
Being  with  man,  and  confine  our  ideas  of  His  illimitable 
vastness  and  His  inscrutable  existence  by  the  notion  of  the 
narrow  personality  which  is  delegated  to  us  finite  creatures 
who  live  but  for  a  day  on  this  small  spot  of  earth,  lost 
amid  the  millions  of  worlds  which  glitter  in  creation,  we 
may  be  sure  that  the  Divine  nature  as  really  transcends 
the  earthly  description  of  it,  as  the  universe  exceeds  this 
world  ;  and  though  we  may  thankfully  accept  the  descrip- 
tion of  God  as  having  three  personalities  as  the  noblest  to 
which  we  can  attain  as  men,  and  as  enough  for  our  present 
wants  in  this  world,  yet  let  us  never  doubt  that  really  the 
Divine  nature  is  vastly  nobler  ;  and  let  us  bow  with  adoring 
thankfulness  in  meditating  on  the  idea  which  we  are  per- 
mitted to  attain,  imperfect  though  it  be,  of  that  mysterious 
essence. 

Yet  though  the  idea  of  God  in  three  persons  may  be 
held  to  be  thus  speculatively  imperfect,  let  us  never  forget 
that  it  is  practically  all-sufiicient  for  us.  For  it  teaches  us 
the  ixrcat  truth  that  He  acts  to  us  as  though  He  did  liter- 


154  ■       SERMON   V. 

ally  sustain  the  characters  of  three  wholly  distinct  persons, 
and  that  He  demands  from  us  the  duties  which  would  be- 
long to  us  if  He  were  so. 

If  we  are  thus  to  believe  of  God,  what  is  the  lesson  which 
this  great  doctrine  that  God  exists  and  acts  to  us  as  Father, 
Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  ought  to  convey  to  us  ?  It  is  mainly 
the  wondrous  thought  that  this  glorious  Being  is  willing  to 
stoop  to  be  our  friend,  that  He  whose  happiness  is  com- 
plete in  its  own  infinity,  is  moved  by  His  own  pure  eternal 
love  to  win  us  to  Himself.  Restless  (to  speak  after  the 
manner  of  men)  to  secure  our  happiness,  all  these  blessed 
persons  of  the  glorious  Godhead  are  engaged  to  secure  it. 
It  is  God  the  Father  whom  we  have  grieved  by  our  sins ; 
and  yet  he  loves  us  as  a  father  still ;  and  to  rescue  us  from 
our  misery.  He  has  designed  the  great  scheme  of  salvation, 
and  sent  God  the  Son  to  dwell  on  this  earth  as  a  man,  as 
a  man  of  sorrows  and  of  poverty,  to  remove  by  His  atoning 
death  the  impediments  which,  secret  perhaps  to  us,  stand 
in  the  w^'xy  of  our  salvation,  and  to  exhibit  the  pattern  of  a 
faultless  human  being,  that  we  may  follow  his  steps  ;  and 
lastly,  after  God  the  Son  had  withdrawn  from  the  earth, 
God  the  Spirit,  the  ever  blessed  Comforter,  has  descended 
to  dwell  constantly  in  the  hearts  of  all  men  that  invite  His 
presence,  cheering  their  guilty  spirits,  stirring  them  up  to 
the  love  of  holiness,  hallowing  them  for  a  meetncss  for  the 
inheritance  of  heaven.  Behold  what  manner  of  love  God 
has  shown  to  us  !  Behold  the  Triune  God  engaged  in  the 
salvation  of  each  one  of  ourselves  ! 

And  can  you  delay  to  yield  to  Him  your  hearts,  your 
wills,  your  affections  ?  If  you  have  sinned,  or  are  tempted 
to  sin,  either  in  deed,  or  word,  or  thought,  remember  that 
it  is  not  merely  sin  against  a  law,  but  that  you  are  verily 
grieving  a  loving  father,  even  the  Father,  God  ;  if  you  are 


ON    THE    TRINITY.  155 

living  a  careless,  half-religious  life,  remember  that  you  are 
perpetrating  the  ingratitude  of  making  the  sufferings  of 
the  Eternal  Son  void  as  regards  your  souls ;  if  you  are 
neglecting  prayer,  neglecting  earnest  supplications  to 
heaven  for  holiness,  you  are  declining  to  avail  yourself  of 
that  unspeakable  gift  of  the  Spirit's  help  which  is  for  all 
that  ask. 

Forget,  if  you  like,  all  those  hard  historical  and  logical 
discussions  with  which  I  have  perhaps  misemployed  your 
precious  time  in  this  sermon ;  forget,  if  you  please,  the 
nobler  views  of  God's  personality  to  which  I  have  striven 
to  raise  you.  Think  of  Him,  if  you  choose,  only  as  three 
persons.  But  forget  not  that  His  eye  is  now  upon  each 
one  of  you,  that  he  seeks  to  have  each  one's  heart.  And 
if,  in  the  portion  of  leisure  which  is  now  afforded  us,*  any 
of  us  are  about  to  go  forth  in  quest  of  health  or  instruction 
to  foreign  lands,  let  us  never  forget  that  when  we  have 
passed  the  Straits  which  insulate  our  native  land,  and  are 
emancipated  from  the  restraints  of  English  society  and  the 
sanctity  of  English  sabbaths,  yet  God's  eye  is  over  us  and 
His  presence  nigh  to  us.  Let  us  never  forget  that  in  what- 
ever scene  we  may  find  ourselves,  whether  lost  amid  the 
thousands  of  a  crowded  city,  or  halting  beneath  the  hum- 
ble roof  of  the  mountain  peasant,  still  none  of  our  ways 
are  unobserved  on  high ;  and  be  it  our  perpetual  consola- 
tion that  there  is  instant  access  for  us  to  God's  throne  by 
prayer ;  nay,  that  if  there  be  in  us  any  good  desire.  He 
sees  it  ere  w^e  shape  it  into  words,  and  from  His  invisible 
throne,  swifter  than  the  speed  of  thought,  there  descends 
the  answer  of  love.     Let  each  of  us  strive  to  use  the  leisure 

*  This  Sermon  was  preached  immediately  before  the  commencement 
of  the  Lonsf  Vacation. 


15G  SERMON    V. 

time  on  wliicli  wc  are  now  entering  not  only  as  a  means  of 
securing  a  higher  mental  cultivation,  but  also  for  gaining 
a  deeper  communion  with  the  God  of  glory.  For  God  the 
Father  loves  us,  God  the  Son  has  redeemed  us,  and  the 
Holy  Spirit  will,  if  we  will  ask  Him,  turn  us  from  sin,  and 
doubt,  and  half-heartedness,  to  the  love  of  Himself,  and 
will  fit  us  for  that  heaven  where,  no  longer  trammelled  by 
sin  and  darkened  by  ignorance,  Vv-e  shall  enjoy  the  beatific 
vision,  and  find  our  everlasting  happiness  in  communing 
with  the  Divine  Being  face  to  face. 


SERMON   VI. 

THE     ATONEMENT. 

(PREACHED  BEFORE  THE  UNIVERSITY,  MAY  15,  1859.) 


MARK    9:2. 

^'And  after  six  days  Jesus  taketh  with  him  Peter,  and  James,  and  John,  and 
leadeth  them  up  into  an  high  mountain  apart  by  themselves :  and  he  was 
transfigured  before  them.'^ 

The  pilgrim  traveller  who  wanders  through  the  land 
once  hallowed  by  the  bodily  presence  of  our  blessed  Saviour, 
never  fails  to  have  his  attention  attracted  by  the  sight  of 
one  hill  which  stands  conspicuous  alike  by  the  beauty  of 
natural  features  and  the  interest  of  traditional  associations. 
The  hill  is  Mount  Tabor.*  From  whatever  position  the 
traveller  may  approach  it,  as  he  reaches  the  escarpment 
which  overlooks  from  all  sides  the  wide  plain  of  the  river 
Kishon,  in  which  it  stands,  the  mountain  comes  into  view 
rising  in  queenlike  majesty  from  the  surrounding  plain. 
Standing  alone  like  an  island  in  a  sea,  with  its  ragged 
slopes  rounded  into  a  conical  outline,  it  presents  the  ap- 
pearance of  cheerful  fertility ;  aged  olives,  with  their  trunks 

*  Stanley's  ''  Palestine,"  pp.  343-392. 
14 


158  SERMON  vr. 

gnarled  by  time,  besides  other  trees,  are  dotted  over  its 
surface,  while  the  outline  of  rude  fortification,  almost  co- 
eval with  our  Saviour's  life,  is  discernible,  forming  the 
coronet  of  its  summit.  We  cannot  wonder  that  ancient 
tradition  should  have  selected  this  spot  as  eminently  "  the 
mountain  apart,"  to  which  some  of  the  Evangelists  allude 
in  their  narrative  of  the  scene  of  the  Transfiguration ;  we 
cannot  wonder  that  those  whom  the  superstition  of  a  pil- 
grimage, or  the  excitement  of  a  liberal  curiosity,  has  at 
various  times  attracted  to  the  spot,  have  looked  with  un- 
common emotion  on  a  mountain  which  to  its  natural  beauty 
added  the  interest  of  supposed  connection  with  one  of  the 
most  marvellous,  the  most  poetical  passages  of  our  Saviour's 
earthly  career. 

It  is  cruel  to  dash  away  such  a  belief;  yet  the  rigor  of 
geographical  criticism  compels  us  to  doubt  Avhether  that 
spot  can  be  the  real  scene  of  this  event.  For  the  compari- 
son of  the  narrative  of  St.  Mark  with  that  of  the  other 
Evangelists  shows  clearly  that  the  words,  "  He  leadeth 
them  into  a  high  mountain  apart,"'''  do  not  refer  to  the 
mountain,  as  if  the  mountain  were  described  as  standing 
"apart,"  but  merely  meant,  "He  leadeth  them  apart  into 
a  mountain,"  ^.  e.,  "  apart"  from  the  hurry  of  men,  "  apart" 
from  the  other  disciples  to  whom  it  was  not  vouchsafed  to 
gaze  on  the  mystic  vision.  Accordingly,  if  we  look  with 
care  into  the  history,  we  find  that  our  Lord  was,  at  the 
time  of  the  event  of  the  Transfiguration,  far  removed  from 
Mount  Tabor,  in  the  hilly  district  either  of  Iturcea,  or  of 
the  northeast  of  Galilee. 

Mount  Tabor  will  still  continue  to  be  a  spot  of  interest 
alike  to  the  man  of  taste  and  to  the  student  of  history; 

*  Mark  9  :  2. 


ON   THE    ATONEMENT.  159 

and  the  traveller  will  still  turn  aside  to  climb  to  its  sum- 
mit, and  gaze  upon  the  panorama  outspread  to  his  view; 
but  as  he  looks  around  him  he  must  content  himself  with 
the  remembrance  of  the  stirring  events  of  which  that  scene 
has  been  the  undoubted  witness,  without  associating  the 
wild  beauty  of  the  mountain  summit  with  the  sacred  history 
of  our  Blessed  Lord.  That  hill,  if  it  had  voice,  could 
testify  to  many  an  exciting  scene  which  has  taken  place  in 
the  plain  at  its  base.  It  heard  the  shout  of  victory  which 
Deborah  raised  over  the  discomfited  host  of  Sisera.  Not 
far  from  it  occurred  the  midnight  panic  which  the  hero 
Gideon  struck  into  the  camp  of  the  Midianitish  hordes. 
Hard  by  stood  the  hills  where  Saul  fell  by  the  hand  of  his 
armor-bearer;  and  from  age  to  age,  down  to  the  memory 
of  living  men,  it  has  witnessed  the  surging  waves  of  suc- 
cessive invasions  roll  around  its  base  ;  but  the  marvel  of  the 
Transfiguration  it  cannot  have  witnessed.  The  scene  of 
that  event  must  be  sought  elsewhere,  far  off  in  the  solitudes 
to  the  northeast  of  Galilee.  There,  in  some  unknown 
spot,  amid  the  spurs  of  the  snowy  range,  from  whose  roots 
bubble  forth  the  sources  of  the  river  Jordan,  was  enacted 
that  marvellous  event,  when  Jesus  was  transfigured  before 
His  startled  disciples.  We  may  regret  the  impossibility  of 
knowing  the  exact  spot ;  we  may  be  sorry  to  be  obliged  to 
think  of  the  event  without  connecting  it  with  the  place  ; 
but  we  really  lose  nothing  by  the  circumstance ;  for  the 
lessons  taught  us  by  the  Bible  are  spiritual,  not  temporal ; 
moral,  not  geographical  :*  the  conditions  of  place  or  of 

^  Some  observations  will  be  found  in  Mr.  Jowett's  work  on  '•'  St.  Paul," 
(vol.  i,  pp.  29-31,  1st  ed.),  on  the  comparative  unimportance  of  geo- 
graphical and  historical  knowledge  as  means  of  gaining  a  knowledge 
of  the  minds  of  the  Scripture  writers.  It  aids  us  in  reproducing  the 
external  scene,  but  does  not  penetrate  into  the  internal  spirit. 


160  SERMON   VI. 

date  matter  little  ;  the  truth  taught  is  eternal ;  and  we,  who 
in  the  peaceful  quiet  of  this  church  are  now  turning  our 
thoughts  to  that  striking  event,  may  realize  its  eternal 
truth,  and  gather  its  eternal  lessons  more  really  than  if  we 
could  determine  the  site  of  its  occurrence,  or  kindle  our 
sympathies  by  a  pilgrimage  to  the  spot. 

Yet  if  it  were  our  object  to  find  interest  in  the  mere 
narrative,  and  poetry  in  the  mere  scene,  the  real  site, 
amidst  some  craggy  fastness  of  northern  Palestine,  would 
supply  it  hardly  less  vividly  than  the  beauteous  form  and 
picturesque  situation  of  the  solitary  Tabor.  For  we  should 
realize  to  ourselves  the  fact  that  our  Blessed  Saviour,  after 
having  exercised  His  ministry  of  mercy  for  more  than  two 
years,*  was  now  a  fugitive,  wandering  near  the  frontiers  of 
the  land  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,  in  order  to  escape  the  observa- 
tion of  the  spies  sent  down  by  the  authorities  of  Jerusalem 
to  track  His  footsteps ;  and  that,  when  thus  circumstanced, 
He  one  day  withdrew  into  a  mountain,  accompanied  by  his 
three  favorite  disciples,  Peter,  James,  and  John,  to  pray. 
There,  while  the  disciples  were  left  sleeping,  while  He  him- 
self was  drawing  nigh  in  prayer  to  His  Heavenly  Father, 
and  His  Heavenly  Father  drawing  nigh  to  Him,  the  powers 
of  the  eternal  world,  over  which  He  had  reigned  ere  He 
came  to  this  earth,  broke  in  upon  Him ;  the  glory  which  He 
had  with  the  Father  before  the  world  was,  overshadowed 
Him ;  His  face  shone  as  the  sun ;  and  His  raiment  became 
white  as  the  light.  The  veil  which  hides  the  unseen  was 
lifted,  and  strange  visitants  from  that  world  stood  beside 
Him.     The  radiance  of  that  glory  broke  in  upon  the  still 

*  The  best  harmony  of  the  Gospels  which  the  writer  of  this  Sermon 
has  ever  met  with  is  that  by  the  traveller,  Dr.  Robinson.  It  is  pub- 
lished in  an  English  form  very  cheaply  by  tl^e  Religious  Tract  Society, 
and  is  accompanied  with  very  judicious  notes. 


ON    TUB   ATONEMENT.  161 

slumbers  of  the  beloved  disciples,  and  as  they  woke,  a 
bright  cloud  was  overshadowing  them,  and  they  feared  as 
they  entered  into  the  cloud.  And  a  mysterious  voice  was 
heard,  which  said,  "  This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am 
well  pleased.  And  when  they  had  looked  round  about, 
they  saw  no  man  any  more  save  Jesus  only  with  them- 
selves."* 

Such  was  the  scene.  We  need  not  surely  pause  to  prove 
that  it  was  not  a  mere  dream  of  the  three  Apostles.  This 
idea  is  forbidden  by  the  fact  that,  in  imparting  the  narra- 
tive of  the  transaction  to  those  evangelists  who  have  handed 
down  the  history  of  it  to  us,  they  have  exactly  marked  the 
line  which  separates  that  part  of  the  vision  which  was  taking 
place,  when  in  the  half  unconsciousness  of  persons  awaking 
from  sleep,  they  hardly  knew  what  they  said,  from  that 
portion  which  occurred  after  they  had  become  cognizant  of 
events  around  them.f  Above  all,  such  an  idea  is  forbidden 
by  the  fact,  which  will  be  more  fully  explained  presently, 
that  from  that  moment  our  Saviour's  teaching  completely 
changed ;  He  began  henceforth  to  divulge  the  fact  of  His 
own  sufferings. J  An  event  must  have  been  real  to  Him 
which  forms  an  epoch  in  His  teaching  and  His  life.  Rest- 
ing accordingly  with  confidence  on  its  reality,  believing 
that  it  was  not  a  mere  sleeping  dream  of  the  Apostles,  but 
a  great  though  mysterious  fact,  that  at  that  moment  heaven 
and  earth  were  brought  nigh,  and  Jesus  transfigured  in 
celestial  brightness,  and  visited  by  spirits  from  the  world 
unseen,  and  that  the  Apostles  were  permitted  to  catch  a 
glimpse  of  the  last  rays  of  that  departing  glory,  let  us  ask 

-  Matt.  17  :  1-13  5  Mark  9  :  2-10  ;  Luke  9  :  28-36. 
tMark  9:6;  Luke  9:  32. 

t  Matt.  17:  22,  23;  20  :  17  ;  Mark  9  :  12,  13;  Luke  9  :  44. 
14* 


162  SERMON    VT. 

ourselves  what  was  the  purpose  and  intention  of  that  won- 
drous revelation  of  things  from  within  the  veil  ?  What 
w^as  its  meaning?  what  relation  had  it  to  the  Apostles? 
what  relation  had  it  (we  ask  it  without  irreverence)  to  the 
Saviour  ? 

It  has  been  common  to  suppose  that  it  had  no  meaning 
to  the  Saviour  himself,  but  that  its  sole  object  and  purpose 
was  to  instruct  the  disciples ;  accordingly  it  has  been 
thought  to  be  a  parable,  as  it  were,  acted^  in  order  to 
figure,  by  the  meeting  of  Moses  and  Elias  with  Christ,  the 
union  of  the  old  dispensations  of  the  Law  and  the  Prophets, 
of  which  they  were  distinguished  representatives,  with  the 
new,  which  Christ  came  to  proclaim.  A  moment's  con- 
sideration, however,  will  at  once  lead  us  to  perceive  that 
such  an  interpretation  is  paltry,  and  utterly  unworthy  of 
the  magnificence  of  the  scene.  God  does  not  thus  act 
either  in  nature  or  in  religion  ;  he  does  not  inaugurate 
mighty  agencies  to  usher  in  insignificant  results.  A  deeper 
meaning  must  therefore  be  sought ;  and  it  may  easily  be 
found  if  we  look  a  little  more  closely  into  the  evangelists' 
narrative. 

St.  Matthew  and  St.  Mark  alike  inform  us*  that,  when 
the  vision  had  ceased,  our  Lord  charged  His  disciples  that 
tliey  should  tell  it  to  no  man  till  the  Son  of  Man  should 
be  risen  from  the  dead  ;  and  that  it  gave  rise  to  a  declara- 
tion by  our  Lord  of  the  sufferings  which  He  should  shortly 
undergo.  And  St.  Luke  adds  a  fact  which  explains  why 
the  conversation  had  turned  to  this  subject,  when  he  says 
that  Moses  and  Elias,  ns  they  appeared  in  glory,  spake  of 
Jesus'  decease  which  He  should  accomplish  at  Jerusalem. f 
So  it  was,  it  appears,  the  subject  of  our  Blessed  Saviour's 

*  Mult.  17:9;  Mark  'J  :  *).  f  Luke  9  :  IM. 


ON    THE   ATONEMENT.  163 

coming  sufferings  which  was  occupying  the  thoughts  of 
those  visitants  from  the  other  world ;  it  was  this  which 
brought  them  back  to  the  earth  which  they  had  so  long 
left ;  and  it  Avas  some  of  the  last  of  those  notes  of  sadness 
which  the  disciples  heard  as  they  awoke  from  their  sleep, 
which  led  them  to  enter  into  discourse  with  our  Saviour  on 
the  subject  of  His  sufferings,  and  which  caused  Him  to 
charge  them,  as  though  they  had  been  permitted  to  learn 
a  secret  of  the  coming  time  which  was  not  to  be  divulged 
to  the  uninitiated,  to  tell  no  man  until  the  Son  of  Man 
should  be  risen  from  the  dead. 

If  we  would  fully  understand  the  bearing  of  this  conver- 
sation about  our  Lord's  sufferings,  we  must  also  take  into 
account  that  strange  fact  to  which  allusion  has  been 
previously  made,  that  from  the  time  of  the  event  of  the 
Transfiguration,  our  Lord's  teaching  underwent  a  change, 
in  that  henceforth  He  announced  that  He  was  to  suffer  and 
to  die.  Heretofore  He  had  not  announced  this.  He  had 
taught  that  He  was  the  Messiah  ;  henceforth  He  taught 
that  He  was  the  Messiah  who  was  to  suffer.  Heretofore 
He  had  taught  that  He  had  come  to  fulfil  the  predictions 
of  the  ancient  Hebrew  prophets,  to  found  that  kingdom  of 
power  on  which  the  hopes  of  generation  after  generation  of 
the  Jewish  people  had  been  set,  and  after  the  glor\^  of 
which  their  longing  eyes  were  straining,  as  they  went  to 
the  grave  unblessed  by  the  expected  day  of  liberty  which 
was  to  free  them  from  the  nations  which  oppressed  them. 
Henceforth  He  taught  them  that  He  was  to  set  up  that 
kingdom  by  means  of  Himself  suffering,  that  He  was  to 
fulfil  in  Himself  the  affecting  descriptions  of  the  prophets : 
"  He  was  cut  off  from  the  land  of  the  living ;  for  the  trans- 
gression of  my  people  He  was  stricken."* 

''^"  Isai.  53  :  8. 


164  SERMON   VI. 

The  reason  why  our  Lord  had  hitherto  kept  back  this 
doctrine  is  not  hard  of  discovery.  It  was  not  as  one  of 
the  rationalistic  critics  of  Germany*  has  suggested,  that 
He  found  the  Jewish  people  so  brutal,  so  unapproachable 
by  moral  teaching,  that  lie  began  to  adopt  the  plan  of 
trying  to  reach  them  by  an  appeal  to  sorrow^,  and  to  court 
death  Himself  to  attest  the  honesty  of  His  own  teaching. 
The  real  cause  was  this  :  that  our  Lord  first  taught  morality 
before  He  taught  faith.  He  first  taught  His  hearers  to 
listen  to  Moses  before  He  expected  that  they  would  listen 
to  Him  ;  He  first  taught  them  to  arouse  themselves  from 
sin  by  repentance,  before  He  communicated  the  intelligence 
of  His  own  sufferings,  which  were  to  be  the  means  of  re- 
deeming them  from  the  misery  of  sin.  Therefore,  after 
He  had  condescended  to  devote  more  than  two  years  of 
His  ministry  to  proclaim  Himself  the  Messiah,  the  Messiah 
who  wished  to  gather  round  him  reformed  men  and  honest 
hearts.  He  devoted  the  remaining  portion  of  hardly  a  year 
to  proclaim  Himself  the  Messiah  who  was  to  suffer, — the 
Messiah  Avho,  by  His  death,  was  to  make  an  end  of  sin,  and 
to  brino;  in  an  everlasting;  riMiteousness. 

From  this  point  of  view  we  can  in  some  humble  measure 
see  what  was  the  purpose  and  meaning  of  the  mysterious 
event  of  the  Transfiguration.  It  was  not  merely,  we 
venture  to  think,  meant  as  a  lesson  to  the  disciples,  a 
lesson  to  teach  them  the  importance  of  Christ's  sufierings, 
to  inform  them  that  those  sufferings  occupied  the  attention 
of  departed  prophets  and  of  inhabitants  of  the  world  un- 
seen, nor  to  convince  them  of  the  glory  of  His  character  ; 
but  it  had  a  real  use  and  meaning  also  in  reference  to  our 
Blessed  Lord.     It  taught  the  three  disciples  these  truths 

-  Dc  Wette,  "Dc  Mort.  Chr.  Exp."  ii,  sect.  2:}. 


ON    THE    ATONEMENT.  165 

indeed,  and  doubtless  the  lesson  was  never  forgotten.  In 
reference  to  St.  James,  we  know  it  not ;  but  in  the  case  of 
St.  Peter,  we  have  his  own  attestation,  shortly  before  he 
was  about  to  put  off  this  tabernacle,  that  he  had  been  an 
eye-witness  of  Christ's  majesty,  when  he  had  seen  His 
glory  on  the  holy  mount.*  And  in  the  case  of  St.  John 
we  may  well  conjecture,  that  when,  a  generation  later,  he 
wrote  his  Gospel  in  extreme  old  age,  and  declared — "  The 
Word  was  made  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us,  and  we  beheld 
His  glory,  the  glory  as  of  the  only  begotten  of  the  Father,"! 
— the  thoughts  of  the  Apostle  were  travelling  back,  across 
the  memories  of  sixty  years,  to  the  scene  which  he  had 
once  witnessed  amid  the  bleak  cliffs  of  the  Syrian  mountains, 
when  the  face  of  Jesus  had  shone  like  the  sun,  and  His 
raiment  glistened  as  the  light. 

While,  however,  the  event  thus  instructed  the  disciples, 
we  cannot  doubt,  from  what  has  been  before  said,  that  it 
had  a  real  use  and  meaning  also  to  our  blessed  Lord.  We 
are  wrong  in  levelling  the  mystery  of  those  few  events  in 
our  Lord's  life,  when  He  was  overshadowed  by  the  powers 
of  the  world  unseen,  to  the  standard  of  our  pigmy  expla- 
nations. In  that  outburst  of  temptation,  for  example, 
which  He  endured  in  the  wilderness  at  the  commencement 
of  His  ministry,  there  was  doubtless,  beside  and  above  all 
that  is  common  to  man  and  an  example  to  man,  a  real 
vicarious  and  mysterious  endurance  of  temptation  by  our 
Lord  as  part  of  the  system  of  mediation  which  He  had 
undertaken.  And  in  that  mysterious  agony  of  dread  and 
terror  which  befell  the  Saviour  in  the  olive  garden  of 
Gethsemane,  it  was  not  under  the  pressure  of  ordinary 
mortal  horror   that  He  Avas  bowed  down ;    we  may  well 

*   2  Pet.  1  :  14-18.  f  John  1  :  14. 


166  SERMON  vr. 

believe  that  there  was  then  going  forward  between  the 
soul  of  our  Divine  Redeemer  and  His  Heavenly  Father 
some  secret  transaction  connected  with  human  redemption, 
that  He  was  verilj  drinking  our  cup  of  sorrow,  and  sweat- 
ing drops  of  blood  in  the  vicarious  endurance  of  our  load 
of  sin,  that  it  was  the  weight  of  the  sins  of  the  world  under 
which  He  was  staggering  which  made  Him  breathe  out,  in 
the  exhaustion  of  His  agony,  "  If  it  be  possible,  let  this 
cup  pass  from  me."''' 

In  like  manner  with  these  two  events  of  the  Temptation 
and  the  Agony  in  Gethsemane,  we  may  well  believe  that 
the  similarly  mysterious  event  of  the  Transfiguration  had 
a  meaning  to  Christ  over  and  above  that  which  it  had  for 
the  Apostles.  We  may  not  hope  to  understand  that  mean- 
ing ;  yet,  if  we  may  conjecture,  we  can  conceive  that  that 
moment  was  the  baptism  into  His  life  of  suffering.  We 
can  imagine  t\iat  the  spirits  were  sent  forth  as  heralds  to 
tell  Him  of  the  interest  with  which  his  work  of  atonement 
was  regarded  in  the  world  invisible.  We  can  conjecture 
that  the  reason  why  angels  were  not  chosen  to  convey  that 
message  to  Him,  but  rather  the  spirits  of  departed  men, 
such  as  Moses  and  Elias,  was,  because  they  were  spirits 
who  had  tasted  of  human  sin,  and  whose  welfare  depended, 
together  with  that  of  the  universe  of  created  men,  upon  the 
work  of  suffering  which  Jesus  was  to  commence.  We  can 
imagine  that  the  vision  of  Divine  glory  which  was  vouch- 
safed to  Him,  the  momentary  taste  of  the  heavenly  state, 
was  to  strengthen  Him  for  that  work,  and  to  cheer  Him 

*  This  view  of  the  meaning  of  our  Lord's  Temptation  and  Agony  is 
worked  out  with  equal  talent  and  pathos  in  the  two  last  Sermons  of  a 
scholarlike  and  suggestive  volume  by  the  present  Dean  (G.  II.  S.  John- 
son) of  Wells.  Compare  also  Newman's  *'  Sermons  to  Mixed  Congre- 
gations" (Sermon  on  the  Agony). 


ON    THE   ATONEMENT.  167 

with  the  prospect  of  the  glory  which  he  had  left,  and  to 
which  He  was  to  return.  And  we  may  possibly  conjec- 
ture, finally,  that  the  voice  from  the  excellent  glory, 
"This  is  my  beloved  Son  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased," 
was  again  uttered  in  order  to  anoint  Him  for  His  mission 
of  suffering,  as  once  before  it  had  been  uttered  at  the 
baptism  in  the  Jordan  to  anoint  Him  for  His  mission  of 
teaching. 

More  than  this  we  must  not  conjecture ;  yet  thus  far,  I 
trust,  the  narrative  of  the  evangelists,  as  we  have  presented 
it,  warrants  us  in  venturing.  More  than  this  we  need  not 
know ;  for  the  subject  has  taught  us  a  lesson  large  enough 
already,  if  it  has  fixed  our  thoughts  on  the  sufferings  of 
Christ,  and  made  us  realize  the  fact,  that  it  is  not  the  life 
but  rather  the  death  of  Christ  which  is  important  as  the 
means  of  our  salvation  ;  not  His  life  as  an  example,  but 
His  death  as  an  atoning  sacrifice. 

It  is  so  much  the  more  important  that  we  should  feel 
this,  because  in  recent  years  the  belief  has  been  fast  spread- 
ing in  our  church  that  the  death  of  our  blessed  Lord  was 
not  for  the  purpose  of  reconciling  God  to  man  by  removing 
the  obstacles,  known  or  unknown,  which  stood  in  the  way 
of  human  salvation,  but  only  for  the  purpose  of  reconciling 
man  to  God,  by  proclaiming  to  mankind  God's  love,  and 
by  exemplifying  the  majesty  of  suffering  and  the  dignity  of 
self-sacrifice.*      The   assertion   of  this  view  has  been  a 

'^  The  view  that  the  Atoueraent  only  reconciled  man  to  God  appears 
to  be  that  of  Mr.  Jowett  ("Essay  on  Atonement,"  in  his  work  on  St. 
Paul,  vol.  ii,  1st  edit.)  ;  that  it  was  a  great  example  of  self-sacrifice  is 
the  view  of  Mr.  Maurice  ("Essay  on  Atonement"),  and  of  the  late  la- 
mented Mr.  Robertson  (i,  9  ;  iii,  7).  Abelard's  view  was  also  similar. 
The  encomium  bestowed  a  few  lines  lower  is  meant  to  include  the 
whole  body  of  educated  theologians  in  the  present  century  who  have, 


168  SERMON   VI. 

natural  reaction  against  the  rash  statements  in  reference 
to  this  great  doctrine  ^vhich  have  not  nnfrequentlj  been 
put  forth :  statements  Avhich  venture  beyond  the  cautious 
teaching  of  the  inspired  Apostles  on  the  subject,  and  are 
constructed  in  ignorance  of  the  development  which  the 
doctrine  has  received  in  the  progress  of  the  history  of  the 
Church.  Such  statements,  in  which  men  dare  to  measure 
God's  infinite  nature,  and  assert  that  the  reasons  can  be 
fully  understood  why  God  was  unable  to  forgive  man  with- 
out an  atonement,  frequently  run  counter  to  those  ineradi- 
cable instincts  of  justice  and  truth  which  the  God  of  nature 
has  planted  in  the  moral  sense  of  man,^as  the  unassailable 
foundation  of  moral  truth  against  which  shallow,  humanly- 
invented  systems  of  theology  dash  themselves  in  vain. 
Accordingly  it  has  been  from  the  high  and  noble  motive 
of  opposing  these  rash  theories,  that  the  view  to  which  1 
allude  has  been  advocated.  It  has  met  with  the  approval, 
since  the  commencement  of  the  present  century,  as  will  be 
known  to  many  of  you,  of  men  who  have  been,  or  who  are, 
the  honor  of  our  church,  the  ornaments  of  our  universities, 
the  glory  of  our  literature, — men  whose  high  moral  and 
intellectual  worth  is  beyond  praise,  and  from  whom  I  could 
not  have  felt  it  right  to  dissent  without  this  tribute  of 
respect  in  honor  of  them.  If,  however,  we  have  reason  to 
believe  that  an  alarm  at  the  rash  speculations  of  men  has 
led  them  into  an  abandonment  of  the  hallowed  doctrine 
which  was  inculcated  by  our  blessed  Lord  and  his  Apostles, 
which  has  formed  the  piety  of  ancient  saints,  and  cheered 
the  hearts  of  guilt-stricken  men,  we  may  venture,  without 
any  charge  of  arrogance,  to  dissent  from  their  criticisms, 


more  or  less,  formed  their  views  by  the  stud}'  of  Coleridge  or  of  the 
modern  literature  of  Germany. 


ON   THE   ATONEMENT.  169 

and  to  cling  tenaciously  to  the  faith  once  delivered  to  the 
saints. 

It  is  impossible,  in  the  few  remaining  remarks  of  this 
sermon,  to  discuss  this  subject  fully,  yet  I  wish  to  point 
out  the  successive  notions  which  have  been  held  in  different 
periods  on  the  subject  of  our  Lord's  sufferings  and  atone- 
ment, in  order  that  you  may  exactly  understand  the 
position  which  the  view  that  I  am  opposing  holds  in  the 
history  of  the  doctrine,  and  may  be  better  able  to  perceive 
the  point  where  human  speculation  has  failed,  at  which 
reason  must  expire  in  faith,  and  theory  in  adoration. 

To  the  minds  of  the  Apostles  the  subject  was  beset  with 
no  difficulties.  Trained  in  the  idea  that  God  was  in  some 
inexplicable  way  approachable  by  sacrifice,  they  beheld  in 
the  death  of  our  blessed  Lord  the  realization  of  their  re- 
ligious aspirations,  the  fulfihnent  of  the  Jewish  sacrificial 
types,  the  true  offering  for  human  guilt.*  They  believed, 
they  theorized  not ;  but  they  prayed,  they  put  their  trust 
in  Christ's  merits,  and  in  the  depth  of  their  own  religious 
consciousness  they  realized  the  joyful  experience  that  their 
characters  were  changed  through  the  power  of  that  death ; 
and  in  the  gladness  of  pardoned  hearts,  and  the  energy  of 
renewed  wills,  they  went  forth  to  proclaim  to  others  the 
blessedness  of  which  they  themselves  had  been  made  par- 
takers. 

But  time  passed  on.  The  Apostles  one  by  one  were 
gathered  to  their  reward,  and  the  voice  of  inspiration  was 
finally  hushed  in  the  tomb  of  the  last  Apostle.  There  was 
no  longer  any  open  vision,  and,  in  the  centuries  of  thought 
and  of  criticism  which  succeeded,  men  began  to  question 
the  cause  of  the  atoning  death  of  Christ.     They  rested  no 

*  See  especially  the  Epistle  to  the  Hel)re\vs  (ch.  5-10). 


170  SERMON  vr. 

longer  in  the  mysterious  fact,  the  reality  of  which  was  re- 
echoed in  their  heart  of  hearts,  but  they  sought  a  reason 
why  an  atonement  had  been  necessary. 

And  in  those  many  centuries  which  intervened  from 
the  third  to  the  eleventh  age,  no  better  answer  could  be 
found  than  that  it  was  for  the  purpose  of  effecting  the 
ransom  of  mankind  from  the  Evil  One  that  Christ  had 
yielded  up  His  life.*  The  darkness  of  the  human  intellect 
in  those  ages  had  clouded  even  Christian  truth,  and  the 
very  patriarch  whose  religious  zeal  led  him  to  send  his  mis- 
sionary to  Christianize  our  Anglo-Saxon  forefathers,  and 
whose  piety  is  attested  by  the  solemn  Litany  w^hich  we  still 
repeat  in  our  services,  which  was  first  chanted  by  him  amid 
the  depth  of  the  Roman  pestilence,  could  find  no  nobler 
solution  of  the  reason  of  our  Blessed  Lord's  mysterious 
death  than  the  degrading  idea  that  it  was  a  price  paid  to 
the  Devil  for  the  redemption  of  man ;  that  as  men  had  be- 
come the  subjects  of  the  Evil  Spirit  in  conquest,  Christ's 
death  was  necessary  to  purchase,  as  by  a  ransom,  the  eman- 
cipation of  the  human  family,  and  their  restoration  to  their 
lawful  king.f 

The  darkness  of  that  night  of  thought  passed,  and  the 
glad  twilight  of  the  morning  of  mental  illumination  began 
to  lighten  up  the  scene.     One  there  was  whose  name  is 

*  This  strange  fact  has  been  brouglit  to  light  by  Dr.  Thomson,  in  his 
able"Bampton  Lectures"  (for  1853)  on  the  Atonement.  See  Lect. 
vi,  p.  155,  and  the  notes. 

t  Gregory,  in  Evang.  ii,  Horn.  25  (quoted  by  Dr.  Thomson).  This 
idea  of  "ransom  "  was  hardly,  indeed,  more  opposed  to  the  moral  sense 
than  are  many  more  recent  theories ;  yet  it  was  a  degrading  notion  to 
assign  to  the  Evil  Spirit  a  duality  of  power  with  the  Divine  Being, — an 
idea  borrowed  through  Manicheism  from  the  duality  of  Eastern  re- 
lio^ions. 


ON   THE    ATONEMENT.  171 

usually  identified  with  political  events  in  the  history  of  one 
of  our  own  Norman  kings,  but  who  is  honored  by  the  stu- 
dent for  the  nobler  labor  of  having  consecrated  his  gifted 
intellect  to  the  explanation  of  the  doctrine  of  the  atone- 
ment. ^'I  do  not  seek," — these  were  his  words, — "I  do 
not  seek,  0  Lord,  to  penetrate  Thy  depths ;  I  by  no  means 
think  my  intellect  equal  to  them  ;  but  I  long  to  understand 
in  some  degree  Thy  truth,  which  my  heart  believes  and 
loves.  For  I  do  not  seek  to  understand  that  I  may  believe, 
but  I  believe  that  I  may  understand."*  England  has  the 
honor  of  possessing  his  remains,  and  amid  the  long  series 
of  monuments  which  mark  the  last  resting-place  of  many 
illustrious  men  in  the  metropolitan  cathedral  of  Canterbury, 
there  exists  none  dedicated  to  a  nobler  memory  than  the 
stones  which  indicate  the  spot  where  formerly  stood  the 
shrine  of  Archbishop  Anselm. 

Anselm  swept  away  the  idea  that  the  atonement  was  a 
ransom  paid  to  Satan,  and  substituted  the  idea  that  it  was 
a  debt  required  by  the  broken  law  of  God.  The  doctrine  was 
thus  no  longer  illustrated  by  an  analogy  borrowed  from  con- 
quest, but  by  one  borrovred  from  the  forms  of  justice.  Yet 
even  Anselm  laid  more  stress  upon  the  holiness  of  Christ's 
life  as  the  fulfilment  of  the  requirements  of  a  broken  law, 
than  upon  the  atoning  character  of  Ilis  death  as  the  very 
essence  of  that  mighty  mystery.  It  was  a  thinker  in  Cen- 
tral Italy,  in  the  early  part  of  the  13th  century, — a  mind 
which  was  one  of  Nature's  prodigies,  which  still  shines 
across  the  distance  of  so  many  centuries  like  a  star  of  the 
first  magnitude, — that  threw  this  additional  beam  of  light 
on  the  doctrine.     I  allude  to  Thomas  Aquinas. f     Nor  has 

*  Anselm,  "  Proslog.,"  i,  p.  43.  His  work  is  injured  by  mystical  ideas 
of  numbers,  &c. 

f  ''  Aquinas  Summa,"  P.  iii,  quest.  48. 


172  SERMON    VI. 

any  further  conception  been  subsequently  added  to  the 
doctrine  in  the  progress  of  time,  save  that,  as  the  opinions 
of  men  on  the  theory  of  human  punishment  have  improved, 
growing  gradually  to  perfection  through  the  successive 
stages  of  retaliation,  compensation,  retribution,  correction, 
till  the  corrective  idea  of  it  has  been  finally  substituted  in 
place  of  the  vindictive,  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement  has 
been  conceived  less  under  the  idea  of  a  vengeance  which 
righteous  justice  demanded,  and  more  under  that  of  a 
punishment  administered  for  some  undiscoverable  reason  as 
a  mighty  spectacle  of  correction  for  sin,  alike  before  angels 
and  before  men.* 

Thus  the  doctrine  has  been  traced  down  the  path  of 
history.  We  have  seen  that  the  fact  only  was  presented 
by  the  Apostles,  and   that  successive  theories  have  been 

*  Compare  Erskine's  "  Internal  Evidences,"  and  Dean  Conybeare's 
"  Theol.  Lectures  "  (Lect.  iii.  p.  358,  &c.)  See  the  notes  to  the  seventh 
lecture  of  Dr.  Thomson's  work,  before  quoted,  from  which  several  refer- 
ences have  been  taken. 

The  various  views  on  the  Atonement  since  the  inspired  teaching  of 
the  Apostles  maybe  classed  as  follows:  (1st).  The  allegorizing  doc- 
trine of  the  Alexandrian  Fathers,  reproduced  by  John  Scotus  Erigena, 
in  the  9th  century;  (2d),  the  Patristic  view  of  ransom  from  the  time  of 
IrenSBus  to  Anselm  ;  (3d),  that  of  the  Schoolmen,  Anselm  and  Aquinas  ; 
(4th),  the  Protestant  theory  of  Calvin  and  Grotius  ;  (5th),  the  Socinian  ; 
(6th),  those  held  by  the  modern  Germans  since  the  revival  of  specu- 
lative philosophy.  Materials  for  this  history  are  partially  supplied  in 
Baur's  work,  "Lehre  von  der  Versohnung,"  above-named.  He  con- 
siders the  tendency  of  theory  on  the  Atonement  to  have  been  toward 
speculations  into  its  objective  nature  until  the  Reformation;  into  its 
personal  or  subjective  relation  to  the  human  soul  from  the  Reformation 
to  Kant's  time  ;  subsequently  to  whose  teaching,  he  regards  the  doc- 
trine as  again  travelling  in  an  objective  direction.  A  brilliant  sketch 
of  this  history  is  given  by  Mr.  Jowett  in  the  second  edition  of  his  work 
on  St.  Paul  fii,  568-585). 


ON   THE   ATONEMENT.  173 

attempts  to  explain  it  by  reason,  or  to  draw  out  the  mean- 
ing of  Scriptural  statements.  Yet,  though  we  thankfully 
accept  all  the  help  which  the  ideas  of  sacrifice,  or  exchange, 
or  ransom,  or  debt  afford  us,  which  of  us  is  there  that  does 
not  feel  that  there  is  some  still  deeper  mystery  unexplained, 
and  that  those  theories  are  but  feeble  attempts  to  grasp 
that  which  transcends  the  powers  of  human  cognition, — 
feeble  attempts  to  present  under  the  miniature  of  human 
analogies  the  magnificence  of  infinite  mysteries  ? 

We  need  only  look  for  a  moment  at  those  astonishing 
contributions  to  the  evidences  of  the  greatness  and  goodness 
of  God  which  knowledge  is  daily  collecting  from  the  works 
of  Nature  ;  we  need  only  read  that  sketch  of  the  "  Cosmos" 
of  the  physical  creation,  which  is  the  last  legacy  bequeathed 
to  the  world  by  the  ripe  and  honored  age  of  the  patriarch 
of  science  whose  remains  have  this  week  been  attended  to 
their  grave  by  the  regrets  of  educated  Europe,  to  be  con- 
vinced that  God's  thoughts  are  not  like  man's  thoughts, 
that  "  the  measure  thereof  is  longer  than  the  earth  and 
broader  than  the  sea."  When,  for  example,  science  traces 
the  infinity  of  vastness  in  the  worlds  and  systems  of  worlds 
which  roll  around  God's  throne  in  twinkling  myriads,  each 
knowing  its  appointed  course  ;  or  descends  into  the  proofs 
of  His  power  in  the  infinity  of  minuteness  revealed  in  the 
world  of  microscopic  life  ;  or  stretches  back  into  the  un- 
known depths  of  the  past,  and  deciphers  the  mighty  move- 
ments and  incomprehensible  purposes,  of  the  God  of  crea- 
tion from  the  memorials  of  fossil  life  inscribed  on  the  rocks 
of  the  globe ;  or  unfolds  the  magnificence  of  His  power 
and  the  vastness  of  His  resources  in  the  ever  restless  flow 
of  causation  which  marks  the  present ;  which  of  us  can  fail 
to  meditate  on  those  mysteries  with  reverence  ?  which  of 
us  can  fail  to  feel  that  the  unfathomable  depths  of  that  in- 

15* 


174  SERMON  vr. 

finite  mind  are  not  to  be  comprehended  bj  the  finite  powers 
of  this  being  who  lives  for  a  day  on  one  insignificant  planet, 
an  atom  amid  the  mightier  worlds  that  rule  in  creation ;  a 
being  whose  knowledge,  where  it  is  not  simply  subjective, 
is  at  least  wholly  relative,  whether  it  be  gathered  from  the 
range  of  earthly  experience  or  from  a  divine  revelation, 
which,  in  order  to  be  understood,  is  necessarily  cramped 
by  terms  and  thoughts  borrowed  from  earthly  analogies  ?* 
"  Canst  thou  by  searching  find  out  God  ?  canst  thou  find 
out  the  Almighty  unto  perfection  ?  It  is  as  high  as  heaven ; 
what  canst  thou  do  ?  deeper  than  hell ;  what  canst  thou 
know  ?" 

Which  of  us  can  fail  to  feel  that  such  unworthy  notions 
as  barter  and  purchase,  and  substitution  and  insolvency, 
borrowed  from  the  small  range  of  mundane  occupations, 
however  useful  they  may  be  as  aids  for  illustration,  are 
not  to  be  regarded  as  the  full  measure  and  entire  explana- 
tion of  that  magnificent  system  of  atonement  which  is  re- 
vealed in  the  death  of  Christ;  the  meaning  of  which  analogy 
would  lead  us  to  believe  as  much  to  exceed  all  our  human 
conceptions  of  it  as  the  universe  exceeds  this  little  globe  ?t 

I  am  far,  indeed,  from  wishing  to  tear  from  any  mind 
the  illustrations  which  it  may  find  useful  in  explaining  to 
itself  the  mystery  of  the  atonement.  As  we  are  unable  to 
form  a  notion  to  ourselves  of  a  Divine  Being,  save  by  con- 
ceiving Him  to  have  a  body,  or  passions,  or  thoughts  like 

*  Knowledge  is  dependent  either  on  mnnic  forms  of  thought,  or  on 
matte)'  suggested  through  eiperience.  In  the  former  case,  it  is  sub- 
jective in  its  character.  A  revelation  must  be  accommodated  to  the 
powers  of  the  being  that  is  to  apprehend  it ;  else  it  would  be  unintel- 
ligible. 

t  See  this  line  of  thought  pursued  in  Sermon  V,  p.  IG'l. 


ON    THE   ATONEMENT.  175 

those  which  belong  to  man  ;"  so  perhaps  we  may  be  unable 
to  imagine  to  ourselves  atonement  without  the  aid  of  earthly 
illustrations  ;  yet  we  ought  to  remember  that  they  are,  at 
most,  probably  only  types,  miniatures,  distant  analogies 
of  a  reality  which  passes  man's  comprehension.  AVe  may 
rest  in  these  now  ;  hereafter,  perhaps,  in  the  heavenly 
world,  the  mystery  of  wondrous  love  shall  be  unfolded  to 
us,  not  in  blind  glimpses  and  indistinct  types,  but  eye  to 
eye,  by  the  light  of  an  undimmed  intuition,  when  we  shall 
know  as  we  are  known. 

Must  we,  however,  in  the  consciousness  of  the  compara- 
tive imperfection  of  all  our  explanations  of  this  great 
atonement,  throw  away  totally  the  mystery  of  it,  and  re- 
gard it,  as  we  have  said  that  many  now  consider  it,  to  be 
only  a  great  example,  preaching  the  evil  of  sin  and  the 
dignity  of  sorrow  ?  Are  we  to  think  that  it  only  reconciled 
man  to  God,  and  not  also  God  to  man  ?  Are  we  to  sup- 
pose that  its  sole  object  was  in  reference  to  man,  and  that 
it  contained  no  deeper  mystery  unrevealed  to  us,  in  refer- 
ence to  God  and  to  the  world  invisible  ?  Are  we  to  believe 
that  no  obstacles  stood  in  the  way  of  our  salvation  except 
those  understood  by  us  ?  By  no  means.  On  the  contrary  ; 
though  I  have  endeavored  to  put  you  on  your  guard 
against  supposing  that  the  trifling  explanations  which  are 
often  given  of  this  mighty  mystery  really  explain  it ;  though 
I  have  hinted  that  any  theory  of  the  atonement  is  perhaps 
impossible,  any  explanation  of  that  majestic  mystery  almost 
irreverent ;  though  I  have  preferred  to  advise  you  to  rely 
on  Christ's  death  as  a  real  but  incomprehensible  mode  of 


*  A  growth  miglit  be  shown  in  the  conception  under  which  the  idea 
of  God  is  presented.  In  the  Law,  God  is  regarded  as  having  the  hody 
of  man  j  in  the  Prophets,  \i\q  passions ;  in  the  Gospels,  his  mind. 


176  SERMON    VI. 

removing  the  obstacles,  which,  known  or  unknown  to  us,* 
stood  in  the  way  of  our  salvation  ;  yet  I  wish  to  caution 
you  very  solemnly  against  accepting  any  suggestions  for 
explaining  away  that  atonement  by  making  it  merely  the 
means  of  reconciling  man  to  God,  and  not  also  God  to  man. 
The  reasons  why  we  cannot  admit  such  suggestions  shall 
be  stated  soon.  Previously,  however,  it  is  necessary  to 
allude  more  distinctly,  even  at  the  risk  of  repetition,  to 
this  modern  form  of  the  controversy. 

It  is  the  opinion  of  many  conscientious  men  that  God 
was  never  angry  with  man,  but  that  man  had,  in  conse- 
quence of  human  sin,  begun  to  doubt  of  God's  love ;  that 
Christ,  therefore,  came  forth  as  a  messenger,  not  to  recon- 
cile God  to  man,  but  man  to  God,  by  embodying  a  visible 
proof  of  God's  love  to  us ;  and  if  the  contrary  view  seem 
to  be  ifnplied  in  the  Holy  Scripture,  they  explain  it  away, 
either  by  supposing  that  Providence  has  permitted  pheno- 
mena to  be  therein  described  from  the  popular  point  of 
view,  just  as  the  alteration  in  the  position  of  the  earth  is, 
in  popular  modes  of  speaking,  attributed  to  a  movement 
in  the  solar  orb ;  or  else  that  the  scripture  writers  were 
presenting  the  idea  under  the  Jewish  conceptions  of  sacrifice 
which  had  trammelled  their  early  education. f 

"What  is  the  answer  to  such  a  view  ?     It  is  evident  that 

"  The  reasons  for  assuming  that  obstacles  "  unknown"  to  us  may 
have  impeded  human  salvation  are  :  (1st)  because  the  finite  mind  of 
man  is  not  a  perfect  gauge  of  the  infinite  God  ;  (2d)  we  have  seen 
that  no  hypothesis,  in  reference  to  these  mysterious  obstacles,  offers  a 
perfectly  satisfactory  explanation  of  them:  and  (3d)  the  idea  oi guilt 
appears  to  point  to  an  impediment  in  Deity  external  to  man,  and  not 
merely  to  the  subjective  or  intei'nal  obstacle  of  man's  distrust  of  God's 
mercy. 

t  The  latter  of  these  two  statements  was  thought  to  be  Mr.  Jowett's 
view  until  his  explanation  in  the  new  edition  of  his  work. 


ON    TUB   ATONEMENT.  177 

appeal  to  the  Bible  for  its  refutation  is  to  beg  at  once  the 
question  which  is  in  dispute,  unless  reasons  can  be  supplied 
for  believing  that  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement  in  the 
apostolical  teaching  is  not  one  which  can  have  received  a 
tinge  from  the  medium  of  the  human  minds  through  which 
the  knowledge  of  it  is  transmitted.*  If  criticism  be  fairly 
allowed  to  subtract  from  that  teaching  whatever  was  local, 
or  Jewish,  or  temporary,  what  tests  can  be  suggested  for 
showing  that  this  hallowed  mystery  must  not  be  thus  sur- 
rendered ?  Such  tests  must  be  found  in  the  circumstance 
that  the  atonement  is  not  a  mere  belief  of  the  Apostles' 
minds,  but  a  fact  of  their  consciousness ;  not  the  product 
of  their  logical  understanding,  but  the  reality  presented  to 
their  intuitional  perception. f 

As  this  position  will,  however,  appear  to  different  minds 
to  possess  different  degrees  of  strength,  it  is  better,  per- 
haps, to  answer  the  suggested  difficulty  by  some  other 
means  than  the  direct  appeal  to  Scripture.  The  refutation 
must  accordingly  be  sought  in  philosophy,  not  in  theology. 
Restricting  it  to  this  point  of  view,  the  question  will  stand 
thus:  The  class  of  writers  who  suggest  the  argument, 
admit  that  the  Scriptures  convey  the  idea  of  atonement, 
but  level  against  the  doctrine  the  antecedent  improbability 
arising  from  its  injustice  as  contradictory  to  the  moral 
sense.  Where  is  the  reply  to  be  found  ?  Is  it  by  showing 
that  the  moral  sense  is  simply  a  guide  for  our  own  conduct, 

*  Were  not  some  of  the  Sermons,  contained  in  the  published  course 
on  the  atonement,  preached  before  the  University  of  Oxford,  in  1856, 
liable  to  this  very  charge  o^ petitio  principii  f 

t  This  distinction  will  be  well  understood  by  those  who  are  ac- 
quainted with  Reid's  "  Theory  of  Perception,"  or  Sir  W.  Hamilton's 
remarks  on  it.  On  the  application  of  this  test  to  religion  and  inspira- 
tion, see  MorrcU's  "Philosophy  of  Religion"  (ch.  2,  5,  6). 


178  SERMON   VI. 

not  a  measure  of  God's  actions,  merely  regulative,  not 
speculative  ?*  I  would  yield  all  honor  to  the  students  who 
furnish  such  answers,  and  I  feel  a  delicacy  in  criticising 
their  teaching  on  the  present  occasion.  Yet  may  it  not 
be  said,  without  impropriety,  that  those  answers  would  not 
satisfy  painful  doubts  such  as  those  to  which  allusion  has 
been  made?  Like  all  arguments  which  have  the  air  of 
demonstration,  they  seem  too  rigorous  and  exact  to  be 
persuasive.  They  recommend  themselves  to  the  believing 
bystander,  but  not  to  the  suffering  sceptic ;  they  constrain 
silence,  but  do  not  carry  conviction :  i(.hi  solitndineyn  fa- 
ciunt,  jjaeem  appellant.  A  less  cogent,  but  perhaps  more 
persuasive,  answer  is  to  be  found,  in  establishing  such  an 
antecedent  probability  in  favor  of  the  idea  of  atonement 

*  This  is  the  line  wLich  Mr.  Mansel  adopts  in  the  seventh  of  his 
"  Bampton  Lectures,"  thus  extending  the  principle  of  the  subjective 
character  of  the  faculties  which  he  adopts  from  Kant  to  the  practical 
as  well  as  the  speculative  reason,  which  that  philosopher  declined  to 
do.  Such  a  view  is,  if  true,  a  complete  answer  to  the  difficulties  on  the 
atonement;  but  would  it  not  destroy  our  capacity  to  judge  of  the  evi. 
deuce  of  a  revelation  equally  with  its  material?  However,  even  if 
true,  it  is  evident  that  it  would  be  an  answer  to  the  opponents  on  new 
ground  ;  the  one^here  attempted  is  on  their  own  ground. 

The  remarks  which  follow  in  the  text  are  not  meant  to  be  disrespect- 
ful to  Mr.  Mansel,  a  writer  who,  previous  to  the  publication  of  his 
''  Bampton  Lectures,"  had  already  placed  himself  in  the  highest  rank 
of  British  psychologists,  and  who  has  in  that  work  brought  his  know- 
ledge of  metaphysical  speculation  to  bear  on  the  subject  of  religion. 
Those  who  adopt  his  views,  that  the  proper  function  of  the  moral  sense 
is  primarily  directed  to  human  duty,  and,  therefore,  that  its  assertions 
are  only  presumptively  true  when  its  sphere  is  transferred  lo  judge  of 
the  Divine  attributes  and  government,  will  regard  the  line  of  argument 
adopted  in  this  Sermon  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  presumption  drawn 
from  the  moral  sense  in  favor  of  Atonement,  designed  to  balance 
the  counter  presumption  derivable  from  the  same  source  against  the 
doctrine,  and  will  not  allow  to  cither  presumption  a  speculative  value. 


ON   THE   ATONEMENT.  179 

as  shall  cancel  the  antecedent  improbability  which  exists 
against  it. 

Whence  is  such  antecedent  probability  to  be  drawn? 
From  consciousness  and  from  history;  from  the  conscious- 
ness of  guilt  and  from  the  history  of  sacrifice.  If  the  idea 
of  guilt  is  universal,  if  it  contains  the  ineradicable  con- 
ception of  ill-desert,  if  it  oppresses  with  incredible  bitter- 
ness even  those  whose  lives  have  been  comparatively  fault- 
less ;  if  also  history  shows  the  prevalence  of  sacrifice  (no 
matter  whether  its  origin  be  divine  or  human),*  as  instinc- 
tively suggested  by  the  universal  human  consciousness  as 
the  means  for  the  removal  of  guilt,  and  thus  witnesses  with 
inextinguishable  clearness  to  the  necessity  of  mediation  ;t 
then  I  claim  that  we  discover  here,  deeply  and  ineffaceably 

"  See  Davison  on  "  Sacrifice  ;"  Magee  and  Dr.  Pje  Smith  on  "  The 
Atonement;"  and  Thomson's  ''  Bampton  Lectures,"  Lect.  ii.  The  evi- 
dence in  favor  of  the  Divine  origin  of  sacrifice  is  collected  in  Mr.  Rigg's 
little  work,  before  named,  on  "Modern  Anglican  Theology."  The 
human  origin  of  them  is  stated  in  Professor  Jowett's  "  Essay  on  the 
Atonement"  (ii,  479,  1st  ed.). 

^  Thomson's  "  Bampton  Lectures,"  Lect.  ii.  A  remarkable  passage 
on  the  consciousness  of  guilt  existed  in  the  first  edition  of  Adam 
Smith's  "  Moral  Sentiments,"  p.  204.  It  is  quoted  by  Magee,  "  Atone- 
ment," vol.  i,  p.  205.  The  value  of  the  argument  from  the  idea  of 
guilt  in  favor  of  vicarious  atonement  is  a  question  of  ontology,  i.  e.  of 
that  branch  of  metaphysical  science  which  inquires  into  objective  exist- 
ence as  distinct  from  subjective  consciousness.  Of  course  such  a  science 
cannot  discover  being  as  distinct  from  our  knowledge  of  being ;  it  can 
only  seek  to  detect  traces  in  the  data  of  consciousness  which  seem  to 
point  to  corresponding  external  realities.  Assuming  from  psychology 
the  existence  of  the  idea  of  guilt,  and  the  peculiarities  which  mark 
it,  how  far  may  this  idea  be  regarded  as  simply  indicating  our  own  dis- 
trust of  God,  or  how  far  may  it  be  viewed  as  indicating  a  cause  in  Him 
which  excites  our  distrust?  This  is  the  ontological  problem.  The 
boundaries  of  the  science  are  stated  in  Mr.  Mansel's  article  on  Meta- 
physics, in  the  ''Encyclopaedia  Britannica,"  eighth  edition. 


180  SEKMON    VI. 

written  in  the  recesses  of  the  human  heart,  the  conceptions 
which  may  form  an  antecedent  probability  in  favor  of  the 
reality  of  the  Scripture  view,  and  which  may  cancel  the 
antecedent  objections  on  the  other  side.  If  so,  we  may 
thankfully  acquiesce  in  the  ordinary  view  of  the  Divine 
atonement,  and  while  declining  to  accept  unhesitatingly 
the  trifling  explanations  which  are  usually  offered  for  sim- 
plifying that  marvel,  we  may  cling  to  the  mystery  itself  as 
a  great  reality.  We  pretend  not  to  explain  it,  but  appeal- 
ing to  the  strength  of  instinctive  conviction,  and  relying  on 
apostolical  teaching  and  on  universal  Christian  conscious- 
ness as  the  perpetual  and  unanswerable  proofs  of  its  truth, 
we  can  hold  fast  the  blessed  doctrine  that  our  Saviour's 
death  was  more  important  than  His  life,  and  believe  that 
the  sufferings  of  Jesus  Christ  have  not  merely  reconciled 
man  to  God  by  testifying  God's  love,  but  have  verily  recon- 
ciled God  to  man  by  removing,  in  some  undiscoverable 
manner,  the  obstacles,  known  or  unknown,  which  prevented 
God  from  showing  mercy  to  man.  And  in  the  light  of  this 
idea  we  can  understand  the  interest  which  is  taken  in  the 
subject  in  the  world  invisible ;  we  can  comprehend  why  the 
spirits  of  departed  men,  when  they  visited  our  Lord  in  that 
mysterious  vision  on  the  mountains  of  Hermon,  spoke  to 
Him  of  the  sufferings  which  he  should  accomplish  at  Jeru- 
salem. 

In  conclusion,  let  us  endeavor  to  enforce  on  our  con- 
sciences some  lessons  to  be  carried  to  our  homes,  and  to 
embody  in  our  lives. 

If  the  sufferings  of  Christ  be  as  important  as  we  have 
represented  them  to  be,  we  should  ask  ourselves  whether 
we  realize  their  importance  in  idea,  and  whether  we  attempt 
to  live  upon  them  in  act.  Each  one's  own  conscience  will 
tell  him  frankly  the  real  state  of  his  heart  in  this  matter. 


ON   THE   ATONEMENT.  181 

During  the  past  week  how  often,  or  how  seldom,  have  you 
turned  in  thought  to  the  Redeemer's  sufferings  ?  The 
angels  desire  to  look  into  these  things;*  departed  spirits 
can  travel  back  to  earth  and  speak  of  them ;  and  when,  in 
mystic  vision,t  the  veil  which  shuts  out  the  invisible  was 
lifted  to  the  loved  disciple,  an  exiled  confessor,  in  the  lonely 
rock  of  Patmos,  and  a  glimpse,  as  it  were,  was  afforded  him 
of  the  heavenly  world,  he  saw  Jesus  standing  before  the 
throne  '^  as  a  lamb  newly  slain,"  while  the  choir  of  angelic 
spirits  was  shouting  the  praises,  "  Worthy  the  Lamb  that 
was  slain,"  and  the  voices  of  ten  thousand  times  ten  thou- 
sand of  the  spirits  of  redeemed  men  were  uttering,  louder 
than  the  sound  of  mighty  waters,  in  adoring  gratitude, 
*'  Thou  art  worthy,  for  thou  wast  slain,  and  hast  redeemed 
us  to  God  by  thy  blood  out  of  every  kindred,  and  tongue, 
and  people,  and  nation."  Does  this  subject  interest  heaven, 
and  yet  engages  not  our  affections  ?  Do  we,  in  the  hurry 
of  our  daily  life,  fretted  with  its  anxieties,  heated  with  its 
amusements,  whirled  away  in  its  vanities,  neglect  to  medi- 
tate on  the  sufferings  of  Christ  ?  When  we  bow  in  prayer 
at  morning  or  at  evening,  or  kneel  to  receive  the  blessed 
Sacrament,  do  we  fail  to  feel  the  value  of  those  atoning 
sufferings  as  our  only  plea,  and  to  cast  ourselves  on  their 
merit  for  pardon,  and  holiness,  and  preparation  for  Heaven? 
Let  us  cling  now  in  our  daily  life  to  that  atonement,  in  the 
agony  of  earnest  prayer,  if  we  would  wish  to  cling  to  it  in 
the  hour  of  death,  when  no  other  support  is  nigh. 

And  let  us  never  forget  that  the  souls  of  each  one  of  us 
are  dear  to  the  Saviour.  He  has  tasted  death  for  every 
man.  Though  absent.  He  sees  us  and  bears  our  prayers. 
Nay,  in  that  absence  He  is  mingling  our  prayers  with  the 

*1  Pet.  1:12.  fRev.  5. 

16 


182  SERMON   VI. 

incense  of  His  intercession,  and  carrying  on  the  work  of 
our  salvation.  You  might  have  thought  when  He  was 
absent  from  the  disciples  on  the  lonely  mountain  top  He 
was  not  concerning  Himself  with  their  needs ;  yet  in  that 
very  transaction  he  was  engaged  in  a  mysterious  work  con- 
nected with  their  salvation.  This  idea  seems  to  have  struck 
to  such  a  degree  the  mind  of  that  great  artist  whose  grand 
picture  of  the  Transfiguration,  the  noblest  work  in  a  noble 
gallery,  formed  the  closing  monument  of  his  wondrous,  but, 
alas !  too  short  career,  that  he  has  actually  violated  the 
laws  of  persfiective  in  depicting  the  scene.  In  the  fore- 
ground of  his  picture  he  represents  the  agonized  relatives 
of  an  afflicted  youth  imploring  in  vain  the  aid  of  the  dis- 
ciples, one  of  whom  points  to  Christ  as  the  only  source  of 
true  aid.  In  the  higher  part  of  the  picture  is  seen  the 
mount  of  the  transfiguration,  and  Jesus  glorified  before  his 
disciples.  And  instead  of  representing  the  figure  of  our 
Saviour  foreshortened,  as  it  ought  to  have  been  when  seen 
from  below,  he  has  depicted  it  in  its  full  length,  as  if  seen 
from  the  same  level  and  close  at  hand."^  Why  was  this? 
Was  it  not,  think  you,  that  the  imagination  of  the  artist, 
filled  with  that  poetry,  with  that  truthfulness,  which  apper- 
tain to  real  genius,  wished  to  imply  that  the  Saviour,  far 
off  on  yon  mountain  top,  to  whom,  as  the  only  source  of 
aid,  the  disciple  was  pointing,  was  indeed  not  really  dis- 
tant, but  in  truth  very  nigh  ?  If  he  meant  this,  he  con- 
ceived the  truth.  For  in  very  deed  Jesus,  though  far  off, 
is  very  nigh  to  all  that  seek  Him.  Though  gone  on  high. 
He  is  interesting  himself  in  human  salvation.  He  now  sees 
each  one  of  us,  and  is  nio;h  to  us.     He  loves  each  one  of  us 


*  Kugler's  "  Handbook  of  Italian  Painting,  Lj  Eastlalce,"  b.  v,  ch. 
iv,  p.  384. 


ON   THE   ATONEMENT.  183 

as  He  loved  His  disciples  of  old  ;  He  as  mucli  pities  each 
one  of  us  as  He  pitied  the  tortured  beings  whom  He  healed 
on  earth  ;  He  as  much  hears  and  answers  the  secret  longing, 
the  unuttered  breathing  of  our  inmost  souls,  as  He  heard 
and  answered  the  suppliants  who  used  to  petition  Him  face 
to  face. 

Ought  we  not  then  to  flee  our  sins,  to  lay  aside  our  half- 
heartedness,  to  yield  to  Him  the  hallowed  service  of  a  per- 
sistent will,  to  grieve  that  any  portion  of  our  hearts  and 
our  affections  should  be  unconsecrated  to  Him?  In  the 
habitual  practice  of  private  prayer,  in  drawing  nigh  to  His 
mystic  sacraments,  let  us  realize  our  interest  in  His  suffer- 
ings ;  let  us  implore  of  Him  pardon,  holiness,  heaven,  and 
He  will  throw  His  everlasting  arms  around  us  while  living, 
and  put  His  hand  under  our  pillow  while  suffering,  and 
receive  our  souls  into  His  bosom  while  dying.  "  By  thine 
agony  and  bloody  sweat,  by  thy  cross  and  passion,  good 
Lord  deliver  us." 


SERMON    VII. 

LAWS  IN  THE  LIFE  SPIRITUAL. 

(PREACHED  BEFORE  THE  UNIVERSITY,  ON  ST.  PAUL'S  DAY,  JAN.  2S,  1858.) 


II    TIMOTHY    4:7. 

"  I  have  foxighi  a  good  Jight,  I  Tiave  jinislied  my  course,  I  have  kept 
the  faith:' 

There  are  three  aspects  of  human  life :  the  life  practi- 
cal, the  life  intellectual,  and  the  life  mystical.  The  life 
practical  is  the  lowest  form  of  life  which  is  strictly  human, 
the  lowest,  that  is,  which  is  raised  above  the  mere  suscepti- 
bilities of  sense.  It  may  coexist  with  the  higher  lives,  or 
it  may  be  in  great  degree  isolated  from  them.  The  life 
intellectual  is  a  further  advance.  It  no  longer  illustrates 
what  a  man  does,  but  what  he  is.  Its  seat  is  in  the  think- 
ing mind,  as  the  seat  of  the  practical  life  is  in  the  active 
powers  and  conscience.  There  is  yet  a  still  higher  life  in 
man :  the  life  mystical  or  religious  ;  those  susceptibilities, 
emotional  and  intellectual,  which  men  experience  towards 
the  infinite,  towards  the  unseen  source  of  power  and  good- 
ness.    This  form  of  life  may  perhaps  be  located  in  the 


ON    LAWS    IN    LIFE   SPIRITUAL.*  185 

exercise  of  a   special  religious  feeling   and  in  the  intui- 
tion.* 

These  three  forms  of  life,  inasmuch  as  they  exist  as  a 
general  phenomenon,  may  be  noticed  in  characters  of 
every  age  and  of  every  religion.  They  are  facts  of  human 
nature,  irrespective  of  the  objects  towards  which  they  may 
be  directed,  and  the  principles  under  which  they  may  be 
conducted.  Accordingly  their  existence  may  be  traced 
also  in  those  persons  who  have  embraced  the  Christian 
religion,  and  regulated  their  lives  by  its  ideas  and  motives ; 
indeed,  it  is  in  them  that  their  highest  and  purest  form 
may  be  studied.  Though  the  life  of  every  Christian  must 
to  some  extent  show  the  combination  of  all  three  lives,  yet 
it  is  quite  possible  to  select  instances  which  shall  form 
marked  examples,  more  especially  of  some  one  of  the 
three.  Thus  most  persons  who  look  at  the  characters  of 
the  Apostles  of  our  Lord,  as  exhibited  alike  in  history  and 
in  their  written  remains,  would  select  St.  James  as  the 
example  of  the  Apostle  who,  in  his  exposition  of  Chris- 
tianity, laid  most  emphasis  on  the  life  practical ;  St.  Paul, 
on  the  life  intellectual,  and  St.  John,  on  the  life  mystical. f 

--  Compare  Morell's  "  Pbilosopliy  of  Religion,"  ch.  2.  The  following 
Sermon,  in  some  degree,  assumes  that  the  religious  life  is  not  merely 
moral  life  elevated  in  its  motives,  and  transferred  to  new  objects,  but 
that  it  depends  upon  a  special  form  of  emotion,  which  co-operates  with 
a  special  form  of  intuition.  The  difference  between  this  view  and  that 
of  Schleiermacher  would  be  mainly  that  he  would  regard  the  discovery 
of  the  laws  of  this  life  to  be  impossible.  While  it  must  be  conceded 
that  the  discovery  of  laws  in  these  faculties  is  really  impossible  if  sought 
by  the  method  of  psychological  analysis,  a  new  mode  for  their  discovery 
is  suggested  in  this  Sermon  in  the  application  of  induction  to  the  ex- 
periences of  religious  men. 

f  Compare  this  view  given  with  proper  limitations  in  the  Rev.  A.  P. 
Stanley's  very  instructive  "  Sermons  on  the  Apostolic  Age." 

16- 


186  SERMON   VII. 

And  ill  a  first  view,  and  as  a  hasty  generalization,  there  is 
much  truth  in  such  a  statement.  Broad  views  of  this  kind 
have  their  value  in  suggesting  or  directing  investigation. 
Yet  if  w^e  look  more  narrowly  into  details,  we  shall  find 
that  no  one  of  these  three  Apostles  presented  these  three 
lives  in  isolation.  It  is  impossible,  on  the  present  occasion, 
to  digress  to  prove  this  assertion  of  St.  James  and  St. 
John  ;  but  it  will  be  very  apparent  in  the  case  of  St.  Paul, 
if  we  turn  our  thoughts  in  the  most  cursory  manner  to  his 
writings.  If  he  presents  to  us  in  the  Galatians  and  the 
Romans  more  approach  to  a  dogmatic  view  of  theology 
than  is  to  be  found  in  any  other  inspired  work ;  yet  in  the 
Epistles  of  his  imprisonment,  those  written  to  Ephesus, 
and  Philippi,  and  Colosse,  we  have  the  secret,  inexplicable 
working  of  the  spiritual  mystical  life  alluded  to,  so  far  as 
language  can  express  them.  "  He  hath  blessed  us  with  all 
spiritual  blessings  in  heavenly  places  in  Christ."  "Ye 
were  sealed  with  that  Holy  Spirit  of  promise."  "  Your 
life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God."  "That  He  would  grant 
you  according  to  the  riches  of  His  glory,  to  be  strength- 
ened  with  might  by  His  spirit  in  the  inner  man,  that 
Christ  may  dwell  in  your  hearts  by  faith,  that  ye  being 
rooted  and  grounded  in  love,  may  be  able  to  comprehend 
with  all  saints  what  is  the  breadth  and  length,  and  depth 
and  height,  and  to  know  the  love  of  Christ  which  passeth 
knowledge,  that  ye  might  be  filled  with  all  the  fulness  of 
God."*  It  is  unnecessary  to  multiply  passages,  but  we 
may  ask,  could  any  language,  even  of  St.  John,  exceed 
such  words  as  these,  in  expressing  the  depth  of  that  spi- 
ritual inner  religious  life  which  St.  Paul  possessed,  and  of 
which  he  longed  that  others  should  partake  ?     Nor  is  it 


* 


Eph.  2:6;  Eph.  1  :  13  ;   Col.  :'>  :  3  ;  Epli.  3  :  16-10. 


ON    LAWS    IN   LIFE    SPIRITUAL.  187 

necessary  to  detain  you  to  prove,  as  might  easily  be  done, 
that  not  only  may  the  life  mystical  be  found  in  the  writings 
of  this  great  Apostle  as  clearly  as  in  those  of  St.  John,  but 
that  also  he  strives  to  impress  on  his  hearers  the  life  of 
Christian  action  as  flowing  from  Christian  principle,  with 
an  earnestness  not  inferior  even  to  the  stern  vigor  of  the 
Apostle  James.  The  chapter  on  charity,  in  his  first  Epistle 
to  Corinth,  utters,  as  it  were,  the  language  of  St.  James 
with  perhaps  more  than  James's  acuteness ;  and  the  lan- 
guage of  St.  John  with  more  than  John's  pathos. 

Indeed  St.  Paul  may  be  adduced  as  an  instance  of  an 
individual  in  whose  life  and  teaching  these  three  lives  were 
very  harmoniously  balanced.  Looking  at  his  character  as 
a  whole,  in  no  other  Apostle  can  we  find  a  model  in  which 
we  can  so  suitably  study  the  three  in  their  combination  in 
a  Christian  character.  And  perhaps  it  is  this  very  circum- 
stance which  in  part  has  largely  contributed  to  make  his 
influence  so  much  more  lasting  and  potent  than  that  of  his 
brother  Apostles,  and  so  operative  religiously  on  other  ages 
than  his  own.  For  it  is  observable  that,  be  the  cause  what 
it  may,  the  fact  is  real  that  the  Apostle  Paul  may  be  mea- 
sured against  the  first  characters  in  history  as  regards  the 
width  and  the  permanence  of  his  influence.  It  might  seem 
a  startling  assertion,  and  yet  it  would  bear  investigation,  if 
we  were  to  assert  to  you  that  the  single  individual  in  all 
time  whom  we  must  select  as  having  exercised  the  greatest 
influence  on  the  world,  and  left  the  impression  of  his  cha- 
racter on  succeeding  ages,  is  the  Apostle  Paul.  If  you 
should  be  at  first  inclined  to  award  that  proud  position  to 
some  mighty  conqueror,  you  must  check  yourself  by  the 
thought  that  the  conquest  has  swept  past  like  the  whirl- 
wind, and  seldom  left  in  the  foundations  of  an  improved 
civilization  the  permanent  happiness  which  is  the  only  com- 


188  SERMON   VII. 

pensation  for  the  infliction  of  temporary  misery ;  or  if  you 
should  incline  to  cro^Yn  with  that  highest  honor  some  phi- 
losopher who  has  opened  up  new  worlds  of  thought,  and 
enlarged  immeasurably  the  methods  of  knowledge,  you 
must  modify  your  decision  by  the  reflection  that  such  a 
labor,  noble  and  enduring  though  it  be,  yields  to  the 
Apostle's  w^ork  in  importance,  as  the  concerns  of  time 
yield  to  those  of  eternity.  It  was  the  Apostle  who  was  the 
first  to  evangelize  Europe.  It  was  he  who  saved  the 
Christian  faith  from  corruption  when  even  St.  Peter  him- 
self was  giving  w^ay  to  the  pertinacity  of  the  Jews.  It  was 
he  who  expounded  the  Christian  doctrines  in  those  Epistles 
which  must  remain  the  most  valuable  monuments  of  Chris- 
tian literature  to  the  end  of  time.  And  when  we  estimate 
his  intellectual  influence,  not  to  take  account  of  the  many 
to  whom  he  was  personally  known,  we  shall  yet  find  that 
the  noblest  thinkers  in  Christendom  have  owed  to  the  stucl}^ 
of  his  writings  those  discoveries  which  have  endeared  their 
names.  Those*  who  from  time  to  time  rescued  from  ob- 
livion neglected  truths,  trained  themselves  by  devout  prayer 
in  the  study  of  the  Apostle's  WTitings ;  and  if  in  the  dark 
night,  which  in  the  middle  ages  spread  its  veil  over  the 
ancient  civilization,  there  were  stars  showing  to  the  pil- 
grim steadier  and  clearer  light  than  the  other  luminaries 
of  the  heavens,  the  cause  was  that  they  reflected  some  rays, 
of  the  Divine  glory  wdiich  had  been  concentrated  in  the 
sunlike  brightness  of  the  Apostle's  inspiration.  And  at  a 
later  period,  when  the  darkness  of  that  night  was  disap- 
pearing before  the  cheering  rays  of  the  day  of  modern 
illumination,  it  w\as  the  study  of  St.  Paul's  writings  which 
gave  the  best  of  the  reformers  those  views  and  that  courage 

*  Chrysostom,  Aiigustin,  Ansclm,  Aquinas. 


ON    LAWS    IN    LIFE   SPIRITUAL.  189 

•which  enabled  them  to  break  up  the  intellectual  and  re- 
ligious servitude  of  the  middle  ages,  and  to  tear  away  the 
additions  which  had  been  made  to  Christianity  in  the  pro- 
gress of  sixteen  centuries. 

Further,  St.  Paul's  example  has  stimulated  eifort  as  his 
writings  have  excited  thought.  For  the  Apostle  stands  at 
an  illimitable  distance  above  the  most  marked  instances  of 
pertinaciousness  and  heroic  self-sacrifice.  His  whole  heart 
was  set,  his  whole  life  was  given,  to  alleviate  human  misery, 
to  carry  the  balm  of  sorrow  to  that  creation  which  was 
groaning  for  it.  Year  after  year  he  pursued  his  purpose, 
meeting  no  reward  but  the  perpetual  reward  of  conscious 
duty,  and  finding  at  length  nothing  but  solitude,  imprison- 
ment, and  martyrdom.  Accordingly,  his  missionary  spirit 
has  formed  the  example,  and  has  stirred  the  emulation,  of 
Christendom  in  all  moments  when  men  have  awoke  to  the 
necessity  of  missionary  effort.  How  great  then  has  been 
the  influence  of  St.  Paul !  It  was  he  that  moulded  Chris- 
tianity, it  was  he  that  dispersed  it  over  Europe,  it  was  his 
thoughts  that  have  aroused  speculation  and  reawakened 
missionary  eff'ort.  Judge,  then,  whether  we  are  altogether 
wrong  in  claiming  for  him  one  of  the  most  influential 
positions  in  history. 

It  is,  not,  however,  to  St.  Paul's  life  of  labor,  nor  to  his 
mental  character  and  dogmatic  views, — not  to  his  life  prac- 
tical or  intellectual, — that  I  desire,  on  the  present  occa- 
sion, to  direct  your  further  attention.  Rather  I  wish  us 
to  study  his  life  as  an  embodiment  of  the  life  spiritual  or 
mystical.  Can  we  so  read  his  life  as  to  comprehend  the 
growth  of  personal  holiness  in  his  character?  Can  we 
disentangle  that  which  is  common  to  all  Christians  from 
that  which  is  peculiar  to  him  in  his  capacity  of  an  Apostle  ? 
Does  he  in  his  writings  off'er  such  explanation  and  interpre- 


190  SERMON    VII. 

tation  of  the  feelings  and  facts  of  religious  living  as  to  give 
us  the  means  of  constructing  an  account  of  the  growth  of 
the  life  spiritual  ?  To  put  the  subject  still  more  generally, 
I  wish  to  consider  the  theory  of  the  religious  life,  whether 
it  is  subject  to  laws ;  if  so,  whether  we  can  discover  them ; 
and  in  that  case,  what  the  method  is  of  such  inquiry,  and 
what  the  chief  results  to  which  it  conducts  us. 

I.  When  we  ask  whether  the  religious  life  is  subject  to 
laws,  the  answer  is  so  natural  that  the  analogy  of  the  whole 
of  God's  government,  both  moral  and  material,  would  sug- 
gest the  presumption  that  the  spiritual  also  must  be  directed 
according  to  a  system  of  laws,  either  discoverable  or  in- 
scrutable, that  it  might  excite  surprise  why  we  should  think 
it  necessary  to  ask  the  question.  Yet  in  reality,  when  we 
look  to  the  history  of  theological  opinion,  we  find  two  such 
very  different  answers  given  to  this  inquiry,  that  it  becomes 
important  to  bestow  a  moment's  thought  upon  it.  There 
have  been  Christian  thinkers  who  have  said  that  the  whole 
of  the  life  spiritual  is  subject  to  merely  moral  laws,  and 
have  resolved  the  Christian  life  into  the  ordinary  processes 
unfolded  by  moral  psychology.  This  view  is  not  common 
in  the  present  age  ;  the  whole  tone  of  thought,  philosophical 
as  well  as  religious,  has  become  averse  to  it ;  but  in  the  last 
century  it  was  quite  a  prevalent  one.  Not  merely  critical 
historians,  like  Gibbon,  who,  WTiting  from  an  external  point 
of  view,  would  naturally  resolve  Christian  goodness  into 
ordinary  principles  of  moral  causation,  but  even  defenders 
of  the  faith,  like  Bishop  Butler  (we  may  perhaps  venture 
to  suggest),  very  nearly  adopt  the  same  view.  What  is 
morality,  according  to  that  eminent  writer,  but  the  restora- 
tion of  a  disturbed  psychological  constitution?  and  what 
does  Christianity  give  us  but  new  motives  and  new  means 
towards  effecting;  such  a  restoration?     There  is  no  distinct 


ON    LAWS    IN    LIFE    SPIRITUAL.  191 

recognition  of  a  life  deeper,  more  hidden,  kindled  by  the 
direct  operation  of  God's  Spirit  in  man's  heart ;  a  life  con- 
sisting not  merely  in  the  restoration  of  a  disarranged  con- 
stitution, but  in  an  actual  union  of  the  human  spirit  with 
the  Divine.*  It  is  possible  that  such  an  omission  may  have 
arisen  from  the  controversial  character  of  the  Bishop's 
writings.  He  wished  to  show  the  reasonableness  of  re- 
ligion, and  therefore  was  compelled  to  show  its  naturalness. 
Yet  the  very  fact  that  he  adopted  such  a  merely  negative 
view  in  order  to  recommend  his  position  may  be  adduced  as 
a  proof  of  the  prevalence  in  his  day  of  such  a  mode  of  view- 
ing the  question.  And  if  it  be  not  true  of  a  majestic  mind 
like  that  of  the  Bishop,  it  is  at  least  true  of  many  of  the 
inferior  Christian  writers  of  that  age,  that  they  evince  no 
perception  of  the  distinctness  between  merely  moral  life, 
heightened  and  purified  in  its  aims,  and  the  deeper  secret 
mystical  life  which  Christians  may  possess.  Among  writers 
of  this  class  religious  changes  are  regarded  as  explicable 
entirely  by  natural  laws.  Circumstances  or  impressions 
acting  upon  us  affect  the  feelings;  the  feelings  form  the 
resolutions ;  the  resolutions  produce  the  acts ;  and  a  course 
of  action,  connected  and  reinforced  from  time  to  time  by 
the  revival  of  the  original  impression  through  means  of  the 
law  of  mental  association,  produces  at  length  habits,  an 

*  Bishojj  Butler's  views  on  this  subject  are  to  be  collected  from  his 
2d  and  3d  Sermon  ;  also  from  the  13th  and  14th,  on  the  Love  of  God  ; 
and  from  part  ii,  ch.  1  of  the  "  Analogy."  In  the  first  of  these  refer- 
ences, he  shows  that  morality  is  the  restoration  of  a  disturbed  equi- 
librium ;  in  the  second,  that  the  love  of  God  is  the  tendency,  or  final 
cause  of  the  various  emotions,  if  transferred  to  their  highest  object;  in 
the  third,  he  represents  Revealed  Religion  as  a  republication  of  Natural 
Religion,  together  with  new  information,  in  reference  to  certain  facts ; 
which,  however,  are  specially  influential  on  men,  through  furnishing 
new  motives  and  new  means  for  religious  improvement. 


192  SERMON   VII. 

habitual  course  of  religious  goodness.  Such  is  one  answer 
to  the  question  whether  the  religious  life  obeys  laws.  It 
obeys  them  simply  because  it  does  not  transcend  ordinary 
moral  life  in  itself,  only  in  its  motives  and  tendencies. 

There  is  another  view,  however,  in  its  character  the  very 
opposite,  yet  which  is  almost  equally  erroneous.  It  is, 
that  the  religious  life  is  a  thing  so  mysterious,  so  regulated 
by  processes  incomprehensible  to  us,  that  it  exists  without 
our  being  conscious  of  it ;  that  it  is  a  thing  which  we  can- 
not express  in  words,  cannot  think  of  in  thoughts ;  that  it 
is  known  to  God,  unknown  to  man  ;  not  detectable  in  our- 
selves or  in  others.  This  view  has  been  held,  in  whole  or 
in  part,  by  many  persons  of  different  schools.  It  is  one  of 
the  greatest  of  the  many  defects  in  the  theology  created 
by  the  Genevese  reformer,  Calvin.  His  teaching  has  led 
his  followers  to  insist  that  the  divine  life  is  something  de- 
pending on  God's  election,  and  not  on  man's  freedom  ;  that 
its  implantation  in  man  is  a  mystery ;  that  it  still  exists 
within  a  man,  not  only  when  he  is  not  conscious  of  it,  but 
even, — (extravagant  and  inferior  minds  have  implied  this) 
— when  he  falls  into  actual  sin.  Nor  is  it  merely  among 
the  Calvinistic  Protestants  that  this  doctrine  appears.  It 
arises  also  from  the  sacramental  theory  of  the  Church  of 
Rome.  Wherever  a  writer  is  found  representing  that  a 
seed  of  grace  has  been  implanted,  opere  operato^  in  the 
sacrament  of  baptism,  which  continues  to  exist  in  a  man, 
unextinguished  through  years  of  actual  sin,  we  have  here 
under  another  form  the  same  idea — viz.,  that  the  life  spiri- 
tual is  something  disconnected  from  fact,  disconnected  from 
consciousness,  disobedient  to  the  law  that  religion  must 
exclude  sin  ;  we  meet  here  again,  under  another  form,  the 
notion  which  we  have  just  been  combating  in  the  theology 
of  Calvin.     Yet  again  the  same  idea  is  found  not  only  in 


ON    LAWS    IN    LIFE    SPIRITUAL.  193 

Calvinism  and  in  the  Catholic  theology,  but  also  in  those 
Mystics  who  from  time  to  time  assert  the  existence  in  man 
(as  they  are  pleased  to  term  them)  of  faculties  transcending 
consciousness.  In  our  own  age,  through  reaction  against 
the  cold,  critical  materialism  of  the  last  century,  such  a 
view  has  begun  to  gain  ground  largely.  The  name  of 
Schleiermacher*  will  occur  as  the  most  notorious  recent 
instance  of  the  application  of  such  views  to  orthodox  theo- 
logy. According  to  this  theory  there  is  a  certain  faculty 
in  men,  an  intuition,  which  rises  above  all  sensible  objects, 
and  penetrates  into  their  very  essence.  It  sees  the  Infinite, 
the  Absolute,  not  under  the  ordinary  limitations  wdiich 
Lcnse  and  thought  put  upon  the  idea  ;  but,  transcending  all 
such  bounds,  it  scans  the  universe  of  being,  it  mounts  to 
the  throne  of  the  Eternal,  and  sees  by  a  supernatural  intui- 
tion absolute  truth,  absolute  goodness,  absolute  beauty. 
The  life  spiritual  is  connected  with  such  a  power.  In  one 
sense  this  identification  may  be  regarded  as  making  it 
amenable  to  laws  ;  but  in  another  the  idea  of  law  is  thrown 
aside  in  the  contemplation  of  it.  For  law  is  a  term  ap- 
plicable to  subordinate  forms  of  existence  and  of  know- 
ledge ;  but  inapplicable  to  a  form  of  existence  and  of 
cognition  which  transcends  the  bounds  of  ordinary  con- 
scious criticism^. 

We  have  thus  presented  in  opposition  the  two  views  of 
the  life  spiritual;  one  which  would  make  it  simply  natural, 
the  other  simply  supernatural.  And  may  we  not  say  that 
there  is  a  grain  of  truth  in  both  views  ?  Spiritual  know- 
ledge is  verily  an  apperception  of  truth  which  is  not  cog- 
nizable by  ordinary  faculties ;  and  spiritual  life  is  a  form 


*  On  Selileiermacher's  Mysticism,  see  Vauglian's  "  Hours  with  the 
Mystics,"  book  xiii. 

17 


191:  SERMON    VIT. 

of  existence  transcending  even  the  highest  moral  life.  Not 
all  truth  is  to  he  reduced  to  that  Avhich  is  amenable  to 
critical  investiiration.  There  is  a  world  of  life  and  of 
thought  of  -which  we  detect  the  traces  but  cannot  under- 
stand the  nature.  And  thus  far  accordingly  the  spiritual 
life,  be  it  regarded  as  intellectual  or  emotional,  is  suj^er- 
natural ;  but  we  must  be  careful,  on  the  other  hand,  not  to 
disconnect  the  spiritual  life  from  the  human  mind,  nor  to 
isolate  it  entirely  from  the  ordinary  facts  of  mental  and 
emotional  science.  And  it  is  in  this  respect  that  Bishop 
Butler's  sermons  will  always  have  such  immense  value. 
There  may  possibly  be  in  them  that  slight  defect  of  an 
absence  of  any  direct  recognition  of  the  life  spiritual,  to 
which  I  before  alluded ;  but  with  this  exception,  we  cannot 
study  too  closely  the  method  in  which  he  shows  that  even 
the  deepest  feelings,  such  as  the  love  of  God,  are  com- 
patible with  human  nature.*  It  was  the  dispute  which  had 
been  opened  up  in  France,  shortly  before  his  own  time,  by 
the  mysticism  called  Quietism,!  which  led  him  to  see  that 
such  a  reconciliation  of  the  supernatural  and  natural  was 
possible ;  and  who  among  us  does  not  feel  what  a  reality  it 
would  give  to  many  a  discourse  on  spiritual  subjects  in  the 
present  day  if  the  minds  of  preachers  were  imbued  with 
the  common  sense,  with  the  science,  of  the  Bishop's 
writings  ? 

II.  In  answering  the  first  question,  whether  the  spiritual 
life  is  subject  to  laws,  we  have  almost  anticipated  the 
answer  to  the  second,  whether  its  laws  are  discoverable  by 
man.     The  answer  which  we  wish  to  give  is,  that  the  mode 


*  See  Butler's  "Sermons,"  xiii  and  xiv. 

f  On  the  history  of  "Quietism/'  sec  Viiugliairs  "  Hours  witli  the 
My  sties,"  l)Ook  x. 


ON    LAWS    IN    LIFE    SPIRITUAL.  195 

of  its  operation  may  be  understood,  though  its  nature  can- 
not. Supernatural  in  itself,  it  is  natural  in  the  method  of 
its  manifestation ;  mysterious  in  its  origin,  it  is  yet  linked 
■vvith  fact  and  joined  with  psychological  processes  and  men- 
tal laws.  Under  this  aspect  its  nature  will  be  similar  to 
other  forms  of  life  known  to  us.  In  all  such  forms,  whether 
the  life  organic  or  the  life  rational,  there  is  a  power  and 
principle  hidden,  to  which  we  never  penetrate,  but  there 
are  effects  under  which  this  mysterious  principle  manifests 
itself,  of  which  we  can  WTite  the  natural  history.  We 
cannot  go  back  to  the  first  dawn  of  physical  life;  but 
beginning  with  its  earliest  manifestation  in  the  germ  cell, 
we  can  trace  its  manifestations  onward  through  the  various 
stages  of  embryonic  and  adult  life  to  its  dissolution.  We 
can  mark  its  features,  see  the  action  and  reaction  of  the 
outer  w^orld  upon  it,  collect  its  phenomena,  evolve  its  laws, 
and  occasionally  generalize  them  into  their  causes.  Simi- 
larly with  the  life  intellectual,  wdiether  studied  in  the  in- 
dividual mind  or  in  the  history  of  the  growth  of  civilization, 
Ave  can  mark  its  power,  and  write  its  history.  Yet  there 
is  a  residuum  of  mystery  to  which  we  cannot  penetrate. 
And  thus  with  the  life  spiritual ;  we  can  watch  its  growth, 
see  what  circumstances  promote  its  vigor,  what  influences 
tend  to  blight  it.  We  cannot  know  its  essence ;  but  we 
can  write  a  practical  history  of  its  manifestations,  and 
form  an  approximately  accurate  theory  of  its  laws  of  ope- 
ration. 

If  this  be  the  case,  what  is  the  method  for  the  discovery 
of  those  special  laws  ? — for  we  have  already  seen  that  they 
are  different  from  even  the  laws  of  the  highest  form  of  life, 
which  is  possible  in  the  mere  feelings  when  actuated  by 
ordinary  moral  motives. 

III.   The  method  to  be  adopted  for  their  discovery  must 


196  SERMON  vir. 

be  to  collect  them  inductively  from  the  experience  of  re- 
ligious men.  There  are  two  sources  wherein  we  may  see 
such  experience  registered  :  one  is  in  the  lives  and  thoughts 
of  saints  in  the  Bible ;  the  other  is  in  religious  memoirs, — 
in  other  words,  in  inspired  and  uninspired  religious  bio- 
graphy. Facts  such  as  those  which  relate  to  the  spiritual 
life  must  be  learned  by  consciousness  alone.  When  we  are 
prosecuting  our  researches  into  physical  subjects,  we  can 
adopt  the  methods  of  observation  and  experiment  as  means 
of  analyzing  the  facts  from  which  we  are  striving  to  gather 
the  inferences.  But  when  we  pass  to  mental  phenomena 
these  methods  diminish  in  value ;  we  can  no  longer  appeal 
to  the  senses,  and  we  are  compelled  accordingly  to  resort 
to  the  method  of  observation  of  internal  phenomena  which 
is  offered  through  consciousness.*  And  you  should  notice 
that  we  not  only  trust  the  assertions  of  such  consciousness 
when  it  is  capable  of  being  verified  in  our  own  experience, 
but  we  trust  it  also  when  it  rests  on  the  statements 
of  other  persons, — when  it  attests  the  mental  and  emo- 
tional phenomena  of  which  other  persons  are  conscious 
even  when  unfelt  by  ourselves,  provided  only  we  use  pro- 
per tests  to  check  its  inaccuracy.  It  is  by  a  method 
exactly  similar  to  this,  and  by  evidence  similar  to  this, 
that  we  learn  the  facts  which  relate  to  the  life  spiritual. 
We  must  trust,  even  where  we  have  not  ourselves  verified 


*  The  methods  of  analyzing  facts  are  usually  stated  to  be  three,  viz., 
observation,  experiment,  and  comparison  ;  the  last  of  which  is  meant 
to  express  the  extended  study  of  analogies  or  affinities,  which  is  pos- 
sible in  botanical  and  zoological  science.  On  the  two  former  methods, 
see  Mill's  "Logic,"  vol.  i,  b.  iii,  ch.  7.  To  these  methods  must  be 
added  a  fourth,  viz  ,  the  examination  of  psychological  phenomena 
through  the  internal  observation  called  cousciousncss.  This  is  the  one 
to  which  allusion  is  made  in  the  text. 


ON    LAWS    IN    LIFE    SPIRITUAL.  197 

them  by  personal  experience  of  the  like  feelings,  the  as- 
sertions of  other  religious  persons,  on  the  facts  of  their 
own  religious  consciousness.  Thus,  for  example,  the  ques- 
tion has  often  been  raised,  whether  spiritual  conversions 
are  sudden  or  gradual.  You  must  settle  a  question  like 
this  simply  by  consulting  biography.  There  you  find 
instances  of  both, — many  instances  like  that  noted  one  in 
the  last  century,  of  Col.  Gardiner,*  of  most  sudden  and 
unexpected  religious  conviction ; — many,  again,  where  a 
good  man  knows  not  the  day  nor  the  hour  of  his  religious 
change,  but  is  only  able  to  express  his  experience,  when 
looking  back  to  his  former  life  of  irreligion,  in  the  words, 
"  I  know  that  whereas  I  was  blind,  now  I  see." 

If  we  thus  build  our  history  of  the  laws  which  regulate 
and  of  the  facts  which  accompany  religious  living  on  the 
consciousness  of  good  men,  what  tests  can  we  use  to  pre- 
vent the  imposture  of  enthusiasm,  the  weakness  of  self- 
deception,  the  cant  of  fanaticism  ?  I  answer,  tests  similar 
to  those  which  we  should  use  in  subtle  facts  of  mental 
science.  Thus  the  degree  of  evidence  in  favor  of  a 
spiritual  fact  would  be  heightened,  (1)  if  the  supposed 
spiritual  fact  be  attested  by  the  consciousness  of  many, 
and  not  merely  of  one  ;  or  (2)  if  it  be  remembered  by  them 
at  a  later  period  of  life  in  a  cooler  moment,  and  be  viewed 
by  them  exactly  in  the  same  way  as  w^hen  at  first  narrated 
by  them ;  or  (3)  if  bystanders  can  testify  that  when  the 
fact  was  first  asserted  to  exist,  the  persons  who  were  con- 
scious of  it  were  at  that  time  in  a  cool  rational  state  of 
mind ;  or  (4)  if,  again,  the  fact  of  internal  consciousness 
connects  itself  with  other  facts  patent  to  all  men.f     Try, 

'•   See  Doddridge's  "  Life  of  the  Hon.  Col.  J.  Gardiner,"  cli.  2. 
t  Some  of  these  tests  are  borrowed  from  a  note  in  Professor  Jowett's 
work  on  '^  St,  Paul,"  vol.  i,  p.  232  (first  edition). 

11* 


198  SERMON   vir. 

for  example,  the  conversion  of  St.  Paul  by  these  tests.  It 
is  very  evident  that  a  miraculous  conversion  like  St.  Paul's 
could  not  admit  of  the  first  test,  viz.,  that  of  comparison 
with  the  consciousness  of  other  persons ;  but  it  admits  of 
the  rest.  For  it  was  always  remembered  by  him,  and  in 
the  main  facts  narrated  ahvays  in  the  same  manner  (I 
speak,  of  course,  here  not  mainly  of  the  outtvard  circum- 
stances of  the  heavenly  vision,  in  the  narrative  of  which 
there  are  unimportant  discrepancies,  but  of  the  {yiternal 
conviction  wrought  in  him  of  the  truth  of  Christianity  and 
of  his  own  duty  to  Christ).  Again,  to  apply  the  third  test : 
he  was  in  the  situation  least  likely  to  have  been  affected  by 
such  a  change,  unless  it  were  real ;  and,  lastly,  this  inter- 
nal belief  of  his  own,  that  he  was  then  touched  by  the 
Divine  Spirit,  connects  itself  with  fact ;  for  from  that 
moment  he  began  to  preach,  at  great  risks,  the  faith  which 
he  had  previously  persecuted. 

There  is  yet  one  other  test  applicable  to  religious  unin- 
spired consciousness,  viz.,  that  of  comparison  with  the  facts 
of  spiritual  experience  stated  in  the  writings  of  the  New 
Testament,  and  to  some  extent  also  in  the  older  Scriptures, 
as  in  the  Psalms  and  Prophets.* 

*  It  will  be  observed  tliat  the  view  liere  taken  of  the  Epistles  is  that 
they  were  not  intended  to  communicate  summaries  of  Christian  doctrines, 
nor  to  be  the  sole  standard  of  theological  appeal ;  for  they  were  written 
to  persons  already  acquainted  with  Christianity,  and  instructed  in  the 
religious  life  by  their  ordinary  pastors,  and  possessing  in  their  own 
religious  ideas  the  education  necessary  to  explain  the  meaning  of  the 
Epistles.  Hence  the  Apostle's  writings  were  chiefly  on  special  points, 
or  special  lixults,  or  particular  duties,  and  omit  that  kind  of  esoteric  or 
detailed  instruction  which  would  be  supplied  to  the  churches  by  their 
ordinary  ministers.  It  follows  that,  though  all  teaching  which  is  con- 
trary to  that  of  the  Apostles  is  necessarily  false,  yet  that  some  truths 
may  be  held  which  they  have  omitted  to  name  in  their  letters.     They 


ON    LAWS    IN    LIFE    SPIRITUAL.  199 

If  these  remarks  are  correct,  as  showing  the  manner  in 
which  we  can  give  the  certainty  of  science  to  facts  of  re- 
ligious experience,  then  we  may  draw  from  them  an  obvi- 
ous inference,  viz.,  that  such  facts  may  be  used  as  a  branch 
of  the  Christian  Evidences.  We  are  accustomed  to  regard 
this  branch  of  the  internal  evidences  derivable  from  per- 
sonal consciousness  to  be  a  valid  reason  of  belief  in  Chris- 
tianity to  the  man  who  has  them,  but  not  a  valid  reason  to 
be  rendered  to  other  persons,  who  have  them  not.  But  if 
such  phenomena  can  with  probability  be  shown  to  be  facts, 
then  in  proportion  as  they  cannot  be  explained  by  natural 
agency,  they  may  be  used  as  a  direct  proof  of  the  inter- 
ference of  Heaven.  Thus,  for  example,  a  religious  conver- 
sion, if  traces  can  be  shown  in  it,  after  all  allowance  has 
been  made  for  natural  influences,  of  what  appears  to  be 
Divine  help,  becomes  immediately  a  moral  miracle  ;  and  it 
might  become  a  question  whether  the  existence  of  such 
moral  miracles,  perpetuated  in  the  Church  in  all  ages, 
might  not  be  made  of  similar  value  as  an  argument  in  favor 
of  the  supernatural  truth  of  our  religion,  as  the  physical 
miracles  which  existed  in  the  early  Church. 

IV.  Having  now  seen  what  is  the  method  by  which  we 
may  collect  the  facts  and  learn  the  laws  of  the  life  spiritual, 
we  have  finally  to  ask  whether  the  life  of  the  Apostle  Paul, 
as  recorded  in  St.  Luke's  history,  or  as  it  peeps  forth  in 
his  own  letters,  can  be  regarded  as  an  instance  in  which 
we  may  see  an  embodiment  of  those  facts  and  laws.  It  is 
so  very  obvious  that  it  admits  of  being  thus  regarded,  and 
most  profitably  also,  that  it  is  only  necessary  briefly  to  in- 


must  be  truths,  however,  which  still  receive  their  attestation  from  the 
internal  consciousness  of  Christian  men,  and  not  dogmas,  which  merely 
rest  on  tradition  or  on  historv. 


200  SERMON    VII. 

dicate  some  very  few  of  the  points  -which  might  be  gathered 
from  it. 

1.  First,  what  facts  of  religious  experience  for  all  time 
may  be  learned  from  the  Apostle's  conversion  ?  In  order 
to  answer  this  we  must  disentangle  in  that  event  the  element 
which  is  peculiar  to  the  Apostle  from  that  which  may  be 
experienced  by  all  Christians.  His  conversion  appears  to 
contain  in  itself  three  distinct  circumstances :  first,  the 
miraculous  manifestation ;  secondly,  the  sudden  transition 
from  Judaism  to  Christianity ;  and  thirdly,  the  religious 
change  from  lower  and  mistaken  views  of  duty  to  a  clear 
perception  and  possession  of  that  higher  life  of  duty  and 
enjoyment,  the  way  towards  the  attainment  of  which  Christ 
had  opened  up  through  his  death.  Of  these  three  circum- 
stances the  last  only  is  applicable  as  a  fact  of  general 
religious  history ;  the  second  was  necessarily  restricted  to 
the  early  Christians.  There  was  a  time  when,  to  use  St. 
Paul's  expression,  they  "first  believed;"  when  they  first, 
that  is,  abandoned  heathenism  or  Judaism  and  accepted 
Christianity.  Such  a  transition  accordingly  is  of  course 
impossible  in  countries  where  persons  are  educated  as 
Christians.  The  first  of  the  three  circumstances,  the 
miraculous  manifestation,  was  peculiar  to  the  Apostle.  It 
seemed  as  if,  among  the  disciples  of  our  Lord,  there  was 
not  one  to  do  the  work  for  which  Saul  of  Tarsus  was  fitted. 
It  seemed  that  Christianity  could  not  go  on  without  Saul, 
and  therefore  in  that  one  case,  and  in  that  one  only,  the 
Saviour  condescended  to  look  down  from  His  throne,  and 
order  a  miracle,  to  summon  an  enemy  to  be  His  Apostle. 
"  He  is  a  chosen  vessel  unto  me,  to  bear  my  name  before 
the  Gentiles,  and  kings,  and  the  children  of  Israel."*     Yet 

'^  Acts  9  :  15. 


ON    LAWS    IN    LIFE    SPIRITUAL.  201 

when  we  have  disentangled  from  St.  Paul's  conversion  the 
miraculous  ingredient,  unique  in  his  case,  and  the  features 
which  it  shared  with  those  of  the  early  Christians,  there 
still  remains  in  it  a  lesson  for  all  time,  in  that  change  which 
passed  over  him  and  transformed  him  (we  cannot  indeed 
say  from  sin  to  holiness,  for  he  was  acting  on  views  of  duty 
even  previously,  but)  from  the  lower  religious  consciousness 
wherein  he  was  acting  wrongly,  though  doing  it  ignorantly 
in  unbelief,  to  that  higher  religious  consciousness  wherein 
he  served  God  as  a  son  and  Christ  as  a  disciple.  Now  a 
change  like  this  is.  as  we  find  from  fact,  one  which  must 
pass  over  all  men,  over  baptized  as  well  as  unbaptized 
persons.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  benefits  given  under 
the  merciful  covenant  of  Infant  Baptism  (and  God  forbid 
that  I  should  depreciate  them),  yet  a  time  must  come  in 
human  life  when  a  man  wakens  up  to  a  sense  of  his  deep 
guilt,  if  he  have  been  guilty  of  wilful  sin,  and  his  deep  sin- 
fulness and  imperfection  if  even  he  have  lived  correctly. 
He  feels  that  some  change  must  pass  over  him  before  his 
conscience  is  at  peace,  some  forgiveness  be  vouchsafed  to 
him  before  he  dare  meet  his  God  in  judgment,  some  holi- 
ness be  imparted  to  him  before  he  dare  hope  for  heaven. 
Such  feelings  and  such  a  state  of  mind  which,  when  tran- 
sient, we  call  "contrition,"  or  "religious  impressions,"  and, 
when  leading  to  permanent  amendment,  "  religious  conver- 
sion," may  be,  nay,  must  be,  considered  to  have  been  con- 
tained, besides  and  in  addition  to  all  miraculous  circum- 
stances, in  the  conversion  of  St.  Paul.  We  have  indeed  in 
his  own  Epistle  to  the  Romans  a  clear  description  of  this 
state  of  mind.  The  seventh  chapter,  where  he  describes  a 
man  wishing  what  is  right  but  not  having  power  to  perform 
it,  and  crying  out,  "  0  wretched  man  that  lam,  who  shall 
deliver  me  from   the  body  of  this  death  !"  alludes  to  the 


202  SERMON   VII. 

state  of  a  mind  wakening  to  this  struggle, — an  incipient 
Christian.  The  eighth  chapter,  "where  he  describes  the 
joj  and  privileges  of  a  pardoned  soul,  alludes  to  that  which 
ought  to  be  the  ordinary  state  of  Christian  men. 

2.  This  brings  into  view  a  second  fact  or  law  of  the  life 
spiritual,  which  may  be  gathered  from  St.  Paul's  state- 
ments about  himself  in  his  own  writings.  We  not  only 
find  that  he  was  changed  by  God's  Spirit  into  a  higher 
consciousness  of  duty,  but  it  must  also  not  escape  notice 
that  he  always  speaks  of  his  own  religious  state,  and  im- 
plies it  in  relation  to  other  Christians,  with  an  ecstatic 
joy,  with  a  confidence  and  a  happiness,  which  are  not 
possessed  by  many  Christians  now.  "  We  joy  in  God,"  he 
says,  "through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  "  Being  justified 
by  faith,  we  have  peace  with  God."  "The  Spirit  itself 
beareth  witness  with  our  spirit  that  we  are  the  children  of 
God."*  Here  St.  Paul  speaks  not  merely  of  himself  but 
of  Christian  privileges  generally,  and  here  accordingly  is 
one  of  the  cases  wherein  we  may  most  fairly  call  in  as 
evidence  that  appeal  which  I  before  explained,  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  Christian  men.  And  if  you  consult  the 
biographies  of  holy  men  you  find  that  a  time  of  their  lives 
came  when  they  were  no  longer  left  to  infer  from  simple 
reasoning  the  pardon  which  they  had  received,  but  felt 
sure  of  it  by  an  inexplicable  peace  of  mind,  by  a  direct 
intuition,  by  a  consciousness  of  access  to  God  in  their 
prayers,  to  which  they  were  before  strangers,  by  an 
earnestness  and  warmth  of  the  religious  afi'ections  toward 
God  and  toward  man,  previously  unknown  to  them.  This  is 
as  plain  a  fact  as  any  can  be  which  is  attested  by  the  con- 
sciousness of  religious  men,  as  expressed  in  their  memoirs 

*  Rom.  5  :  11  :    Uoui.  5  :  1  ;  8  :  16. 


ON    LAWS    IN   LIFE    SPIRITUAL.  203 

and  private  writings.  Along  with  this  fact  is  the  further 
one,  that  such  a  state  of  joy,  and  of  love,  and  of  holiness,  was 
not  given  to  them  by  God's  election,  or  bj  some  unknown 
mysterious  process,  but  was  simply  asked  and  simply  ob- 
tained by  that  one  method  of  earnest  prayer  which  is  as 
sure  and  direct  a  means  of  obtaining  spiritual  blessings  as 
any  cause  in  nature  is  of  producing  its  appropriate  effects. 
Facts  like  these  of  religious  consciousness  explain  the 
statements  of  the  Apostle  about  his  own  joy,  and  peace, 
and  love.  And  what  may  we  infer  from  them  ?  Not 
perhaps  that  we  must  disquiet  the  minds  of  those  who  do 
not  possess  such  feelings,  for  their  simple  business  is  to  be 
earnest  in  their  religious  duties,  such  as  prayer  and  the 
holy  communion,  and  to  leave  with  God  the  result ;  but 
that  we  should  represent  such  a  state  as  attainable,  that 
we  should  strive  after  it  ourselves  in  prayer  and  in  the 
blessed  sacrament,  and  should  proclaim  it  to  others,  for 
oh  !  let  not  our  minds  be  haunted  with  that  most  fatal 
notion  that  God's  spiritual  gifts  are  capricious  and  various. 
The  variation  between  one  man  and  another  depends  mostly 
upon  ourselves,  not  upon  God.  God  has  placed,  if  we 
may  so  say,  His  Divine  Spirit  within  human  power  by 
making  the  gift  of  it  conditional  on,  and  proportionate  to, 
man's  prayers. 

3.  These  illustrations  might  be  immeasurably  extended 
of  the  kind  of  use  which  we  miorht  make  of  the  relio;ious 
consciousness  of  St.  Paul  in  discovering  the  facts  of 
spiritual  experience,  the  laws  of  the  life  mystical.  But 
it  is  time  to  close,  and  we  may  fitly  accordingly  turn  our 
thoughts  to  that  last  fact  of  spiritual  history  taught  us  in 
his  life,  viz.,  that  a  life  of  Christian  duty,  of  Christian 
piety   and   privilege,  conducts   to   a   death   of  calm  and 


204  SERMox  vir. 

triumphant  liope.  If  men  will  take  cave  of  their  lives, 
God  will  not  be  unmindful  of  them  in  their  deaths. 

There  is  something  singularly  affecting  in  the  thought 
of  the  Apostle  in  the  solitude  of  his  last  days.  At  the 
moment  when  one  would  have  thought  that  the  Christians 
of  Rome  would  have  counted  it  their  greatest  privilege  to 
be  admitted  to  familiar  intercourse  with  him,  when  converse 
with  his  mind  so  rich  in  knowledge,  so  mighty  in  expe- 
rience, must  have  been  like  intercourse  with  an  ambassador 
from  within  the  veil, — he  was  abandoned  by  them  all. 
Paul  the  aged — worn  out  with  his  missionary  labors — de- 
serted in  his  hour  of  trouble — abandoned  in  his  captivity, 
with  no  one  to  minister  to  him — left  without  a  friend  as 
the  day  of  his  martyrdom  approached — is  a  scene  which 
needs  neither  artist  to  depict  nor  poet  to  describe.  Yet 
man  is  never  truly  alone  !  Amid  the  vastness  of  this 
world's  waste,  or  in  the  gloomy  solitude  of  the  prisoner's 
cell,  God  is  there.  The  old  Hebrew  prophet  thought  him- 
self alone  when,  after  having  traversed  the  sands  of  the 
desert,  he  hid  himself  in  a  cave  among  the  rocks  of  Horeb. 
There,  amid  the  mountain  solitudes,  Elijah  was  alone, 
surrounded  only  by  the  still  scenes  of  unchanging  nature. 
And  yet  he  was  made  to  feel  that  even  there  God  was  w^ith 
him,  that  there  was  no  such  thing  as  solitude,  that  every 
spot  through  the  expanse  of  space  was  present  to  the  Al- 
mighty ;  that  though  fancying  himself  alone  he  was  in 
contact  with  his  Maker. 

So  we  might  be  sure ;  indeed,  we  know  from  his  last 
Epistle  that  the  aged  Apostle,  forsaken  by  man,  was  not 
forgotten  on  high  ;  and  his  dungeon — (it  may  possibly  have 
been  that  dark,  underground  prison  which  is  still  shown  to 
the  traveller,  which  was  certainly  used  for  such  purposes  in 


ON   LAWS    IN   LIFE    SPIRITUAL.  205 

the  Apostle's  time,*  or  it  may  more  probably  have  been 
some  other  spot) — was  tenanted  by  a  heart  filled  with  the 
peace  which  nothing  earthly  gives  or  can  destroy,  and  the 
gloom  of  his  prison  was  illumined  by  the  presence  of  the 
God  which  filleth  eternity,  and  who  was  as  much  watching 
over  his  faithful  servant,  and  as  much  listening  to  his  mut- 
tered prayers,  as  if  this  universe  had  been  a  void  and  Paul 
its  sole  inhabitant. 

Methinks  I  can  see  the  Apostle  in  the  consciousness  of 
this  feeling  kindling  with  rapture,  as  he  concluded  his  letter 
to  Timothy,  at  the  thought  of  the  mansion  of  his  Father's 
house  which  was  prepared  for  him ;  the  home  to  him  weary 
with  the  long  journey  of  life,  the  haven  for  his  spirit,  long 
tempest-tossed  in  persecutions.  I  admire  thee,  Paul,  in 
many  acts  of  thy  life  I  I  admire  thy  invincible  courage 
when  proclaiming  unwelcome  truth  before  the  scoffing  crowd 
at  Athens,  and  uttering  threats  of  a  judgment  to  come  when 
standing  at  the  tribunal  of  Felix, — a  freeman,  though  in 
chains !  But  most  of  all  do  I  admire  thee  when,  the 
tyrant's  sword  being  already  half  unsheathed,  I  see  thee  in 
the  Roman  dungeon,  from  which  there  was  no  prospect  of 
emerging  except  to  the  Roman  scaffold,  solitary  and  for- 
saken of  friends,  yet  looking  up  with  confidence  to  that 
Saviour  who  never  forsakes,  and  breaking  forth  in  the 
exclamation,  "  I  know  whom  I  have  believed,  and  am  per- 
suaded that  He  is  able  to  keep  that  which  I  have  committed 
to  Him  against  that  day." 

We  have  not  full  particulars  of  the  Apostle's  death.  He 
was  doubtless  beheaded ;  and  the  traveller  may  still  visit 

^  It  seems  at  least  that  it  was  used  for  political  prisoners.  There 
can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that  the  lower  of  the  two  dungeons  in  the  Ma- 
mertine  prison  was  the  scene  of  the  execution  of  Jugurtha  and  Lentulus, 
and  proba])ly  of  the  Samnite  general  C.  Pontius. 

IS 


206  SERMON    VII. 

the  reputed  scene  of  his  martyrdom.  About  three  miles 
to  the  south  of  Rome,  on  the  heights  which  swell  gradually 
from  the  eastern  bank  of  the  river  Tiber,  there  is  a  solitary 
glen  among  green  hills.  There  is  the  spot  which  is  said  to 
have  been  the  scene  of  the  Apostle's  suffering ;  there  was 
formerly,  according  to  tradition,  the  Apostle's  grave.  "  The 
beautiful  seclusion  of  the  region,  surrounded  in  every  quarter 
by  the  bare  hilly  downs  of  the  Camjiagna^  which  are  exca- 
vated in  many  spots  into  dens  and  caves  of  the  earth, 
similar  to  those  in  which  the  early  Christians  so  often  took 
refuge,  inspires  a  feeling  suitable  to  the  event." "^ 

Though  we  know  not  the  particulars  of  the  Apostle's 
death,  we  may  well  picture  to  ourselves  in  imagination  the 
calm  and  heroic  fortitude  which  he  would  manifest  as  he 
was  led  out  from  Rome  to  that  scene  of  execution.  He 
had  a  conscience  void  of  offence  both  toward  God  and  to- 
ward man.  If  he  looked  backward,  he  had  the  remem- 
brance of  a  life  well  spent ;  if  he  looked  forward,  he  had 
the  prospect  of  speedy  admission  into  the  presence  of  the 
Saviour  whom  through  thirty  years  of  missionary  labor  he 
had  striven  to  love.  Yet  he  would  move  forward  with  a 
deep  sense  of  the  solemnity  of  the  moment.  He  is  about 
to  exchange  time  for  eternity.  In  a  few  moments  pro- 
bation will  have  ceased  with  him.  He  will  be  lost  or  saved 
forever.  He  will  be  Paul  the  Apostle  no  longer ;  he  will  be 
simply  Paul  the  sinner,  giving  account  at  the  bar  of  God. 
Dare  he  trust  God  now, — now  in  this  the  tremendous  mo- 
ment of  his  life,  now  in  this  the  crisis  of  his  greatest  need? 
— yes !  he  dare,  for  God  is  his  friend.      God  had  pit}^  on 


"^  The  spot  is  at  tlie  Abbadia  alle  tre  Fontanc,  about  three  miles 
beyond  the  Basilica  of  St.  Paolo.  Spalding's  Italy,  ii,  33.  Bunsen's 
"Beschreibung,-'  iii,  part  i,  p.  460. 


ON   LAWS   IN    LIFE    SPIRITUAL.  207 

him  when  he  was  yet  a  sinner ;  surely,  therefore,  He  will 
have  pity  on  him  now  that  he  has  been  His  servant.  As 
these  thoughts  pass  through  his  mind,  the  sadness  passes 
from  his  face,  a  look  of  seraphic  joy  spreads  over  his  coun- 
tenance and  illumines  every  feature ;  and  as  he  yields  up 
his  neck  to  the  sword  of  the  executioner,  he  exclaims  in 
triumphant  exultation,  "  I  am  now  ready  to  be  offered,  and 
the  time  of  my  departure  is  at  hand.  I  have  fought  a  good 
fight,  I  have  finished  my  course,  I  have  kept  the  faith. 
Henceforth  there  is  laid  up  for  me  a  crown  of  righteous- 
ness, which  the  Lord,  the  righteous  judge,  shall  give  me  at 
that  day ;  and  not  to  me  only,  but  unto  all  them  also  that 
love  his  appearing," 


SERMON    VIII. 

THE  GIFTS  OF  THE  HOLY  GHOST. 

(PREACHED   AT  THE   CHAPEL  ROYAL,  WHITEHALL,  ON  WHIT-SUNDAY,  185S.) 


J.  0  H  N    1  4  :  1  6. 

"yl/icZ  /  10 ill  pray  the  Father'^  and  he  shall  give  you  another  Comforter, 
that  he  may  abide  icith  you  forever.''^ 

It  was  a  sad  and  anxious  moment  to  the  Apostles  when 
they  stood  on  the  top  of  the  Mount  of  Olives  and  saw  Jesus 
parted  from  them  and  a  cloud  receive  Him  out  of  their 
sight.  We  may  reasonably  imagine  that  they  stood  gazing 
into  heaven,  doubting  w^hether  Jesus  had  ascended  from 
them  forever,  or  whether  His  departure  was  only  one  of 
those  many  mysterious  disappearances  which  they  had 
witnessed  in  the  forty  days  which  had  succeeded  to  His 
resurrection,  when  the  heavens  had  suddenly  yielded  up  to 
them  His  presence,  and  Jesus  had  stood  in  the  midst,  and 
had  as  suddenly  vanished  out  of  their  sight.  They  might 
well  think  that  he  had  only  gone  away  for  a  season ;  but 
these  hopes  were  dissipated  by  the  appearance  of  the  two 
heavenly  messengers,  who  assured  them  that  Jesus  had 
taken  a  final  farewell,  and  had  departed  till  the  last  great 


ON   THE   HOLY   GHOST.  209 

day  :  "  Ye  men  of  Galilee,  why  stand  ye  gazing  up  into 
heaven  ?  This  same  Jesus  which  is  taken  up  from  you 
into  heaven  shall  so  come  in  like  manner  as  ye  have  seen 
Him  go  into  heaven."  It  was  then  that  the  Apostles  first 
felt  their  loss.  It  was  then  that  they  knew  their  loneli- 
ness. A  band  of  men — most  of  them  rude  fishermen  from 
a  northern  province — had  left  their  occupation  to  follow  a 
wonderful  teacher,  as  his  associates  in  subduing  the  world ; 
and  now  he  had  vanished  and  abandoned  them  to  subdue 
that  world,  as  it  seemed,  unaided.* 

It  was  at  a  moment  when  such  thoughts  as  these  filled 
the  Apostles'  minds,  that  they  would  begin  to  turn  their 
hopes  to  that  mysterious  promise  which  their  Master  had 
not  long  before  given  them  of  a  Comforter  who  should  be 
with  them  in  his  absence.  "  And  I  will  pray  the  Father, 
and  He  shall  g^ve  you  another  Comforter,  that  He  may 
abide  with  you  forever :  even  the  Spirit  of  truth.  I  will 
not  leave  you  comfortless;  I  will  come  to  you.  Yet  a 
little  while  and  the  world  seeth  me  no  more ;  but  ye  see 
me;  because  I  live  ye  shall  live  also."  Nor  did  they 
wait  long  in  doubt,  for  after  about  ten  days  the  surprising 
miracle  happened,  that  there  came  from  heaven  a  sound  as 
of  a  mighty  rushing  wind,  and  they  were  all  filled  with  the 
Holy  Ghost,  and  began  to  speak  with  other  tongues  as  the 
Spirit  gave  them  utterance.  Of  all  miracles  ever  wrought, 
the  gift  of  the  Spirit  was  the  most  astounding. 

That  marvel  is   a  surprising   one   which  the   Scripture 

*  Their  feelings  of  solitude  at  that  moment  have  been  beautifully 
depicted  by  a  Spanish  lyric  poet,  Luis  de  Leon,  in  his  hymn,  "  En  la 
Ascension,"  beginning  "  Y  dexas,  Pastor  Santo,"  &c.,  a  translation  of 
which,  hardly  inferior  to  the  original,  will  be  found  in  Tichnor's  "  Hist, 
of  Spanish  Literature,"  vol.  ii,  ch.  9 :  "  And  dost  thou,  holy  Shepherd, 
leave,"  &c. 

18* 


210  SERMON  viir. 

opens  up  to  us  in  the  miracle  of  creation,  Avhen  it  places 
us  at  the  dawn  of  created  nature ;  Avhen  it  transports  us 
backward  to  the  depths  of  a  past  eternity  when  God  was 
alone.  Then  as  now  God  was  ;  but  besides  Him  there  was 
nothing.  The  Supreme  Being  existed  with  universal  si- 
lence round  Him.  Suddenly  his  fiat  went  forth,  and  the 
universe  was  peopled  with  motion  and  life.  Orbs  began  to 
roll  in  periodic  circle  round  his  eternal  throne,  and  intelli- 
gences, sparklings  of  the  Infinite,  sprung  into  existence  at 
His  bidding.  "  The  morning  stars  sung  together,  and  all 
the  sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy."  That,  again,  was  a 
stupendous  miracle  worthy  of  a  God,  the  loftiest  expres- 
sion of  the  tenderness  of  the  Almighty,  when  his  own  Son 
was  born  in  the  village  of  Bethlehem  ;  stooping  to  join 
mankind  in  their  sufferings,  that  he  might  elevate  human 
nature  along  with  Him  to  the  throne  which  he  had  left. 
Well  might  the  choir  of  the  Heavenly  hosts  break  in  upon 
the  stillness  of  the  midnight  with  their  chant  of  triumph ! 
Well  might  inanimate  nature  respond  to  the  event  by 
launching  forth  a  meteor  to  attract  the  Eastern  sages  ! 

But  majestic  as  was  the  miraculous  sight  of  the  freshness 
of  the  morning  of  created  nature,  stupendous  as  was  the 
condescension  in  God  becoming  man,  the  miracle  was,  if 
possible,  still  more  marvellous  Avhen  God  the  Spirit  con- 
descended to  come  down  to  take  His  residence  in  the  hearts 
of  men.  It  was  an  infinite  condescension  for  God  to  live 
among  men,  it  was  a  greater  one  for  Him  to  make  His 
dwelling-place  within  men's  hearts.  It  was  a  wondrous 
comfort  for  His  disciples  to  be  able  to  go  to  a  God  present 
on  this  earth  and  ask  His  aid  ;  but  it  was  a  mightier  privi- 
lege to  know  that,  without  undertaking  a  long  pilgrimage 
to  seek  the  presence  of  a  local  Saviour,  there  was  help  to 
be  found  from  an  omnipresent  Comforter;  that  for  men  of 


ON    THE   HOLY   GHOST.  211 

eTery  race  and  rank,  without  respect  of  age  or  sex  or  con- 
dition, for  the  captive  and  for  the  free,  for  the  sick  and  for 
the  strong,  there  was  close  at  hand  a  Spirit  to  be  given  in 
answer  to  their  prayers;  that  wheresoever  under  the  broad 
heaven,  on  earth,  or  on  sea,  in  the  crowded  city  or  in  the 
solitude  of  the  desert,  one  prayer  is  breathed  up  to  God  for 
His  Spirit,  then  from  the  Invisible  that  Spirit  breaks  forth ; 
and  though  not  with  rushing  wind  or  tongues  of  fire,  yet 
within  the  soul,  heart  to  heart,  spirit  to  spirit,  He  witnesses 
by  the  gift  of  conscious  comfort  and  purifying  holiness  that 
He  is  present,  the  Comforter,  in  Christ's  absence,  who 
shall  abide  with  men  forever. 

We  cannot  wonder  that  at  the  first  manifestation  of  such 
descent  His  presence  \\as  marked  by  evidences  such  as  the 
world  had  never  before  seen.  It  is  not  surprising  that  the 
overpowering  joy  of  the  Spirit's  presence  in  the  hearts  of 
that  band  of  waiting  worshippers  caused  it  to  be  supposed 
that  they  were  drunk  with  wine.  We  cannot  wonder  that 
the  greatest  of  events  should  be  marked  with  the  greatest 
of  effects,  that  ignorant  men  should  suddenly  be  strength- 
ened to  speak  in  other  tongues ;  that  the  stammering  dis- 
ciple should  be  suddenly  turned  into  the  eloquent  preacher, 
and  the  fierce  and  prejudiced  Jew  into  the  loving,  subdued, 
hallowed  Apostle. 

What,  then,  w\as  the  special  nature  of  that  outpouring  of 
the  Spirit  ?  what  the  special  gifts  which  His  presence  com- 
municated ?  This  is  the  practical  and  important  question 
for  us,  if  we  would  ascertain  how  far  w^e  have  become,  or 
may  become,  partakers  of  them.  They  were  especially 
four :  miracle,  inspiration,  holiness,  and  religious  useful- 
ness. We  assert,  first,  that  the  gift  of  the  Spirit  conferred 
the  power  to  suspend  Nature's  laws  by  the  action  of  what 
is  usually  called   miracle;  secondly,  that  it  strengthened 


212  SERMON   VIII. 

the  human  intelligence  to  penetrate  the  world  of  spirit,  and 
gaze  face  to  face  on  undiscovered  truth  and  reveal  it  to 
mankind ;  thirdly,  that  it  was  the  means  of  changing  un- 
holy men  into  holy  ones ;  fourthly,  that  it  was  manifested 
in  a  mode  which,  for  w^ant  of  a  better  term,  may  be  called 
religious  usefulness,*  by  which  we  mean  that  it  accompa- 
nied the  ministry  of  those  who  possessed  it  in  such  a  manner 
that  their  words  produced,  in  a  supernatural  degree,  a  moral 
effect  on  those  that  heard  them.  But  while  we  assert  that 
these  four  gifts  were  conferred  on  the  Apostles  by  the 
miracle  of  Pentecost,  we  do  not  claim  them  all  as  the  privi- 
lege of  ordinary  Christians,  nor  as  the  permanent  gifts 
which  the  Divine  presence  was  to  confer.  If  we  briefly 
survey  each  class,  we  shall  be  able  to  understand  how  many 
of  these  gifts  were  temporary  and  how  many  perpetual ; 
which  of  them  were  special  and  which  general. 

1.  The  first  form  in  which  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
manifested  itself  was  in  conferring  the  power  of  working 
miracles  to  aid  in  the  propagation  of  Christianit3^ 

There  is  scarcely  a  fact  in  the  history  of  the  world  better 
attested  than  the  Christian  miracles.  The  whole  evidence 
of  history  must  be  belied  if  their  existence  is  denied.  The 
proof  by  which  the  reality  of  the  great  characters  of  history, 
and  of  their  deeds,  is  established,  is  hardly  more  certain  than 
the  evidence  from  contemporary  testimony  of  tlie  existence 
of  the  Apostles,  and  the  actual  reality  of  their  miracles. f 
And  it  is  a  proof  of  the  cogent  evidence  which  has  been 

*  The  meaning  of  tliis  phrase  will  be  made  clear  hereafter.  It  is 
intended  to  be  comprehended  (as  well  as  prediction  of  the  future)  in 
the  apostolic  word  "prophecy,"  in  1  Cor.  12  :  10. 

f  The  clever  work  of  Archbishop  Whately,  '^  Historic  Doubts  on 
Napoleon  Bonaparte,"  has  for  its  object  the  establishment  of  this 
point. 


ON   THE    HOLY    GHOST.  .  213 

brought  to  bear  upon  this  subject,  that  sceptics  have  latterly 
ceased  to  attack  it.*  There  maybe  diiSculties  in  religion, 
and  there  may  be  weak  points  in  the  evidence  of  it,  but 
this  weakness  is  not  in  the  department  of  miracles.  If 
indeed  we  had  no  contemporary  proof,  we  might  almost 
argue  that  some  kind  of  supernatural  support  was  vouch- 
safed to  the  early  Christian  missionaries,  if  we  only  measure 
their  success  against  the  means  employed. f  A  few  illite- 
rate peasants  from 'the  shores  of  the  lakes  of  Galilee  set 
forth  to  convert  the  world.  As  they  spoke,  men  were 
pricked  to  the  heart,  and  joined  themselves  to  them..  By 
the  testimony  of  the  heathen  philosopher  Pliny,J  the  con- 
verts became  changed  men,  and  the  progress  of  the  religion 
was  so  great,  that  whole  provinces  in  a  short  time  bowed 
before  the  new  faith.  Was  this  a  common  religion  like  the 
many  systems  which  this  world  has  seen  ?  It  bore  this 
diiference :  it  was  a  system  narrow,  exclusive,  unadapted 
to  the  tastes  of  men,  though  marvellously  adapted  to  their 
moral  wants.  It  was  favored  by  no  earthly  power,  it 
offered  no  earthly  reward,  it  pandered  to  no  prejudice, 
stooped  to  no  passion,  admitted  no  collusion.  What  quality 
then  did  it  contain  which  proved  so  attractive  ?  Search 
among  the  religions  of  the  world,  and  you  will  perceive  the 
contrast  which  it  bore  to  them.  Try  to  penetrate  through 
the  mists  of  twenty-four  centuries  of  Hindoo  history  to  the 
origin  of  Boodhism,  and  you  will  find  that  it  was  not  a  new 

*  The  aUusion  here  is  to  the  fact  that  modern  critics  {e.  g.  Strauss, 
"Lebeii  Jesu")  have  found  it  necessary  to  explain  away  the  Evange- 
lists' narratives  by  reducing  them  to  myths  instead  of  denouncing  the 
miracles  as  simple  fables,  as  writers  of  the  last  century  were  accus- 
tomed to  regard  them. 

f  See  Milman's  ''  Bampton  Lectures/'  Lect.  vi,  p.  269. 

%  Pliny's  '^  Letter  to  Trajan,"  Ep.  x,  97. 


214  SERMON   VIII. 

creed,  but  the  vigorous  expression  of  a  moral  reformer  who 
awoke  the  religious  instincts  of  his  countrymen.*  Trace 
the  rise  and  progress  of  Mahometanism,  and  you  will  dis- 
cover that  it  owed  its  progress  to  the  sword,  or  to  the  lust 
of  war,  or  that  it  was  at  best  but  the  reflection  of  Arabian 
thought,  the  embodiment  of  the  primeval  patriarchal  uni- 
tarianism,  which  had  always  swayed  the  thoughts  of  those 
sons  of  the  desert.  Christianity,  on  the  other  hand,  aimed 
a  blow  at  every  prejudice,  and  was  founded  on  a  revulsion 
of  previously-known  principles.  How  can  you  account  for 
the  mightiness  of  that  result  from  the  smallest  of  causes? 
Why  did  the  heathen  world  bow  before  the  messengers  who 
came  forth  from  a  retired  district  of  an  insignificant  Roman 
province  ?  Suppose  a  person  meditating  upon  this  circum- 
stance without  being  acquainted  with  the  facts  of  the  his- 
tory, would  he  not  be  compelled  to  admit  some  potency  of 
earthly  evidence,  or  some  proof  of  supernatural  power  ?f 
And  that  presumption  is  true.  Christianity  made  all  its 
advances  by  argument  and  proof.  Its  missionaries  healed 
the   sick    and    raised    the   dead,   and   miraculously  spoke 

*  The  view  of  Boodhism  liere  adopted  is  that  which  would  make  it 
part  of  a  movement  in  the  East  to  which  Confiicius's  revolution  in  China 
is  analogous,  probably  about  600  b.c.  But  see  the  account  of  the 
Journeys  of  the  Boodhist  Pilgrim,  Hhouenthsang,  recently  transUited 
from  the  Chinese. 

t  Most  readers  would  admit  that  Gibbon's  enumeration  of  the  sup- 
posed causes  which  may  have  led  to  the  spread  of  Christianity  is  utterly 
inadequate  to  the  explanation  of  the  phenomenon.  It  is  true  that  the 
five  causes  which  he  suggests  really  were  not  without  their  influence, 
for  Christianity  was  so  all-embracing  in  its  operation  that  it  included 
those  among  others;  but  they  were  conditions,  not  causes,  of  its  spread. 
Gibbon's  chapters  on  Christianity  are  rather  a  subject  of  regret  than  of 
alarm  or  bitterness.  It  is  pitiable  to  see  a  mind  such  as  his,  unap- 
proachable in  its  greatness, — the  Michael  Angelo  of  history — demean 
itself  by  such  sophistry. 


ON   THE    HOLY   GHOST.  215 

tongues  wliicli  they  had  never  learned ;  and  men  saw  these 
things  and  marvelled,  and  perceived  that  God  had  spoken, 
and  they  gave  car  and  accepted  the  doctrine  which  those 
mighty  wonders  attested.  We  pause  not  to  inquire  into 
the  possibility  of  miracles;  we  cannot  even  spare  a  moment, 
on  the  present  occasion,  to  reconcile,  their  existence  with 
the  great  government  of  the  Almighty  by  general  laws ; 
but  we  accept  the  fact,  and  we  refer  to  the  mighty  out- 
pouring of  the  Spirit  at  Pentecost  as  the  cause  ;  and  we 
recognize  in  the  potency  of  these  evidences  the  first  of 
those  great  acts  of  help  to  the  weakness  of  the  early  mis- 
sionaries, which  led  Christ  so  emphatically  to  describe  His 
offices,  when  he  predicted  his  coming,  as  being  those  of  the 
Comforter. 

Was  then  this  gift  of  miracles  temporary  or  perpetual, 
special  or  universal  ?  The  answer  to  this  question  must  be 
found  in  the  fact.  Miracles  have  ceased,  and  hence  we 
argue  the  temporary  character  of  it.  Antecedently  we 
should  have  expected  its  perpetuity ;  but  we  accept  the 
experience  of  history  as  proof  of  the  error  of  our  anticipa- 
tions. It  is  unnecessary  to  pause  to  ascertain  whether 
miracles  have  been  occasionally  repeated  at  long  intervals 
by  the  pious  faith  and  prayers  of  saintly  men."  We  rather 
would  ask  what  v,-as  the  reason  why  the  gift,  once  so 
abundant,  was  so  soon  withdrawn.  The  reason  would  ap- 
pear to  be  this.  The  office  of  miracles  was  merely  to 
awaken  human  curiosity  to  the  heaven-sent  message  ;  when 
men  once  turned  their  ear  to  listen,  the  doctrine  was  allowed 
to  speak  for  itself.  The  perpetual  evidence  of  Christianity, 
unassailable  by  the  advance  of  science  or  the  acuteness  of 
criticism,  is  that  it  links  itself  to  every  human  want  and 

*  Compare  Dr.  Arnold's  '' Lect.  on  Mod.  Hist."  p.  105. 


216  SERMON   VII. 

responds  to  every  liuman  susceptibility  ;  and  tlius  when  the 
missionaries  had  once  established  by  miracles  their  claim 
to  be  considered  Divine  messengers,  the  mighty  proof  was 
withdrawn,  and  Christianity  was  left  to  work  its  way  by 
moral  evidence.  The  external  demonstrative  proof  was 
only  for  the  purpose  of  arousing  attention  ;*  the  internal 
appeal  to  human  candor  was  to  effect  the  rest.  The  Al- 
mighty was  not  in  the  earthquake  nor  in  the  storm,  but  in 
the  still  small  voice  of  persuasion  and  of  conscience  ;  and 
so  we  think  we  can  discern  it  to  be  a  beautiful  example  of 
Almighty  wisdom  that  miracles  were  withdrawn  when  they 
were  no  longer  needed,  that  the  Spirit  ceased  thus  to  com- 
fort when  the  Church  was  no  longer  mourning  for  this  aid. 
2.  We  asserted,  secondly,  that  the  influence  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  strengthened  the  minds  of  the  Apostles  to  discover 
truth  and  elevated  them  to  reveal  it  with  an  inspired 
authority.  This  was  a  blessing  which  Christ  had  distinctly 
promised  to  His  disciples  when  He  said,  "I  have  yet  many 
things,  to  say  unto  you,  but  ye  cannot  bear  them  now. 
Howbeit  when  He,  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  is  come.  He  will 
guide  you  into  all  truth,  and  He  will  show  you  things  to 

*  The  comparative  logical  weight  of  the  internal  and  external  evi- 
dences of  Christianity  is  a  subject  which  still  demands  treatment.  The 
view  here  intended  is  that  the  external  evide^ices,  such  as  miracle, 
prophecy,  martyrdom,  &c.,  were  mainly  designed  to  arrest  attention,  in 
order  that  the  internal  appeal  to  the  moral  consciences  of  men  might 
have  a  fair  field  for  producing  its  appropriate  effect.  It  is  observable, 
in  confirmation  of  this  view,  that  on  the  only  occasion  on  whicii  we  find 
St.  Paul  to  have  met  with  an  intellectual  audience,  able  to  appreciate 
evidence,  and  willing  to  listen  to  it,  viz.,  at  Athens,  he  wrought  no 
miracle;  but  appealed  wholly  to  argument.  If  this  view  be  correct, 
political  power,  in  obtaining  a  hearing  for  Christianity  in  heathen  lands, 
performs  at  this  present  time  the  analogous  function  to  that  which  the 
external  evidences  fulfilled  in  the  early  ages  of  the  Church. 


ON    THE    HOLY    QIIOST.  217 

come."  Our  Lord  had  tanglit  a  germ  of  truth  while  on 
earth,*  but  He  here  promised  to  send  to  the  Apostles  a 
Divine  Spirit  which  should  illuminate  them  to  discover  a 
deep  and  mystical  meaning  where  they  had  not  before  seen 
it,  and  to  penetrate  into  the  world  of  unseen  realities,  and 

*  The  view  here  intended  is  that  the  teaching  of  the  Apostles,  after 
the  Pentecostal  gifts,  was  in  advance  of  that  which  our  blessed  Lord 
communicated  while  on  earth.  This  can  not  only  be  shown  by  fact, 
but  is  implied  by  the  Evangelist  when  he  said  that  "  the  Spirit  was  not 
then  given,  for  Jesus  was  not  yet  glorified."  (John  7  :  39.)  The  work 
of  our  Lord  on  earth  as  a  teacher  was  the  reformation  of  doctrine  and 
practice  5  that  of  the  Apostles  was  reconstruction.  Our  Lord  taught  the 
spiritual  meaning  of  the  Jewish  law,  and  showed  that  Judaism  was 
fulfilled ;  the  Apostles  taught  that  Christianity  was  not  merely  Judaism 
fulfilled,  but  Judaism  abolished.  Antecedently  to  the  Transfiguration, 
our  Lord  taught  only  that  he  was  the  Messiah  5  subsequently  to  that 
event,  that  he  was  the  Messiah  to  suffer  ;  but  it  was  the  Apostles,  and 
specially  the  writer  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  who  were  the  first  to 
explain  the  doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  the  interpretation  of  the  Jewish 
law,  and  the  internal  spiritual  life  of  Christians.  According  to  the 
view  here  advocated,  the  stages  of  Divine  revelation  would  be  as  fol- 
lows, each  in  advance  of  the  other:  (1)  the  Patriarchal;  (2)  the  Mo- 
saic ;  (8)  the  Prophetic  ;  (4)  the  teaching  of  St.  John  the  Baptist  and 
of  our  Blessed  Lord  until  the  Transfiguration  ;  (5)  the  teaching  of  our 
Lord  after  that  event  5  (6)  the  teaching  of  the  Apostles.  The  difference 
between  the  Mosaic  and  Prophetic  dispensations  is  made  clear  by 
Davison  in  his  "  Lectures  on  Prophecy."  The  growth  in  the  teaching 
of  the  Apostles  is  made  clear  in  Neander's  '^  History  of  the  Planting  of 
the  Early  Church."  Evidences  of  smaller  differences  and  of  less  plainly 
marked  advances  might  be  found  under  most  of  these  periods.  Thus, 
for  example,  in  the  last  of  those  mentioned,  the  Apostolic  teaching,  we 
might  perhaps  enumerate  as  subordinate  distinctions  :  (a)  the  Jewish 
school  of  teaching  of  St.  James  and  St.  Peter  ;  (5)  the  Gentile  school 
of  St.  Paul ;  (>•)  the  Alexandrian  school  of  the  writer  of  the  Hebrews  ; 
and  [S]  the  intuitional  school  of  St.  John.  "But  all  these  worketh 
that  one  and  the  selfsame  Spirit,  dividing  to  every  man  severally  as  He 
will." 

19 


218  SERMON    VIII. 

eA^olcc  from  its  depths  discoveries  new  in  character  and  in- 
valuable in  import.  It  must  indeed  be  frankly  admitted 
that  a  human  element,  as  well  as  a  divine,  is  traceable  in 
the  writings  of  the  Apostles.  Those  favored  men  did  not 
lose  their  personality  beneath  the  overpowering  majesty  of 
the  mysterious  inspiration.  They  were  not  mere  automa- 
tons, mechanically  uttering  words  which  they  understood 
not.  Yet,  while  they  were  left  to  express  the  divine  truth 
according  to  their  different  habits  of  mental  thought  and 
different  modes  of  human  expression,  there  was  in  the 
truth  which  they  conveyed  a  great  reality  which  they  had 
not  discovered  by  unassisted  reason, — a  reality  into  which 
the  Spirit  of  truth  himself  had  deigned  to  guide  them. 
The  treasure  was  in  earthen  vessels  ;  but  in  itself  it  was 
divine. 

The  question  will  suggest  itself  whether  this  great  gift 
of  the  Comforter  remains,  or  whether  it,  like  the  gift  of 
miracles,  has  departed.  The  answer  must  be  given  that 
in  great  part  it  has  disappeared,  and  for  a  similar  reason. 
As  the  gift  of  miracles  was  continued  only  so  long  as  was 
necessary  for  gaining  a  hearing  for  Cliristianity  among  the 
heathen,  so  the  gift  of  inspiration  was  continued  only  so 
long  as  was  necessary  for  evolving  the  body  of  Christian 
doctrine.  Yet  there  is  a  sense,  though  a  far  humbler  one, 
in  which  the  Spirit  does  still  illuminate  religious  men. 
Such  is  the  play  of  human  emotion  with  human  thought, 
and  especially  when  the  mind  attempts  to  judge  on  reli- 
gious questions,  that  it  is  impossible  for  a  man  (be  his 
clearness  of  mind  as  great  as  it  may)  to  apprehend  reli- 
gious truths  unless  his  heart  be  touched  to  feel  the  value 
of  that  truth,  and  his  prejudices  lulled  to  allow  him  to  give 
it  a  hearing.  It  is  this  great  gift  which  the  all-sanctifying 
Spirit  confers  now  as  of  old.     We  do  not  claim  that  He 


ON   THE    HOLY   GHOST.  219 

interferes  with  the  mental  laws  which  govern  thought,  but 
we  claim  it  as  a  fact  alike  of  human  experience  and  of 
psychological  science,  that  some  means  of  controlling 
human  prejudice,  in  order  to  secure  an  honest  judgment 
on  such  questions,  is  necessary ;  and  experience  seems  to 
prove  that  the  Spirit  of  God  vouchsafes  such  help  even 
now  to  all  that  seek  it,  and  will,  we  may  infer,  continue  to 
do  so  as  long  as  that  help  shall  be  needed,  i.  e.,  until  time 
shall  be  no  longer. 

3.  The  consideration  of  the  last-named  gift  of  the  Spirit 
leads,  by  a  natural  transition,  to  that  which  was  noted  as 
the  third  of  His  blessed  offices,  viz.,  the  changing  un- 
holy men  into  holy  ones.  The  manifestation  of  this  great 
fact  is  seen  in  the  history  of  the  Pentecostal  miracle.  The 
intellectual  growth  of  the  Apostles'  minds  by  that  visita- 
tion is  not  more  marked  than  the  moral  change  which 
passed  over  their  characters.  It  is  not  more  extraordinary 
to  find  the  blind  prejudices  disappear  from  the  Apostles' 
minds,  and  the  ambition  for  an  earthly  monarchy  fade 
before  the  clearly  seen  vision  of  the  spiritual  kingdom, 
than  to  see  the  w^eak  made  strong,  the  timid  bold,  the 
fierce  hallowed  into  meekness.*  The  selfsame  Peter  who 
had  quailed  before  the  suspicion  of  the  servant-maid  and 
had  denied  with  oaths  his  knowledge  of  Jesus,  now  stood 
up  before  assem.bled  crowds  to  proclaim  the  crucified,  w^ith 
a  courage  which  Christ  had  foreseen  when  he  had  declared 
that  he  was  the  rock  on  which  He  would  build  His 
church. t  The  same  John  who  had  wished  to  call  down 
fire  on  the  Samaritans  for  their  incivility  now  became  a 

*  See  Neander's  "  History  of  the  Planting  of  the  Early  Church," 
vol.  i,  ch.  1. 

t  For  the  explanation  of  this  promise  and  its  fulfilment,  see  Rev. 
A.  P.  Stanley's  "Sermons  and  Essays  on  the  Apostolic  Age." 


220  SERMON    VIII. 

pattern  of  gentleness  ;  the  Son  of  Thunder  was  subdued 
into  the  Apostle  of  Love.  Stephen  proved  himself  to  be 
so  influenced  by  this  mighty  change  that  in  a  few  days  he 
yielded  up  his  spirit  with  heroic  fortitude  in  triumph,  mut- 
tering with  his  dying  breath  forgiveness  towards  his  mur- 
derers. And  not  in  the  pillars  of  the  Church  only,  but  in 
the  humble  members  of  it,  there  is  evidence  of  the  same 
absence  of  selfishness,  the  same  devotion  to  God,  and  the 
same  love  of  man. 

Let  us  pause  a  moment  here  to  contemplate  this  won- 
drous work ;  for  we  are  not  here  dealing  with  a  gift  which, 
like  that  of  miracles  or  inspiration,  has  passed  away. 
This  is  the  everlasting  gift  which  the  Holy  Spirit  confers 
as  really,  as  fully,  in  the  present  time  as  formerly.  Now 
as  then,  He  changes  unholy  men  into  holy  ones.  .Now  as 
then,  He  works  in  the  hearts  of  men  that  mighty  change 
which  is  the  indispensable  preparation  for  admission  into 
the  presence  of  the  God  who  cannot  bear  sinfulness. 

We  possess  a  nature  prone  to  evil,  and  the  Avholc  sys- 
tem of  our  moral  affections  is,  in  a  considerable  degree, 
disarranged  and  disorganized.  We  love  sin,  we  do  not 
love  God  ;  we  are  fettered  by  the  bond  of  selfishness  ;  our 
generous  instincts  are  repressed  ;  though  endowed  with 
capacities  which  no  finite  object  can  satiate,  and  made  to 
strive  after  the  infinite,  we  abdicate  these  lofty  aspirings, 
and  allow  ourselves  to  be  absorbed  by  the  present,  and  our 
eyes  groAv  dim  to  the  eternal  and  the  future.  It  is  the  office 
of  the  Spirit  of  Christ  as  the  Comforter  to  remove  this 
evil.  Acting  on  a  man  through  the  instrumentality  of 
conscience,  the  Spirit  rouses  him  from  the  lethargy  of  his 
nature,  and  excites  in  him  apprehensions  of  God's  hatred 
of  sin  and  of  a  judgment  to  come  ;  sometimes  drawing  by 
motives  of  fear,  sometimes  by  motives  of  love.     And  when 


ON    THE    HOLY   GHOST.  221 

the  individual  is  convinced  of  sin  and  is  sensible  of  bis 
miserable  condition,  the  Spirit  suffers  him  not  to  be  over- 
whelmed by  the  sight  of  his  own  worthlessness,  but  en- 
courages him  to  seek  for  mercy  from  him  who  is  mighty  to 
save.  Those  influences  smite  only  to  heal,  they  awaken 
the  sense  of  dependence  on  God's  mercy  in  Christ,  they 
incline  the  man  who  is  the  subject  of  them  to  prayer,  they 
stir  up  within  him  inexpressible  longings  after  holiness  and 
goodness.  Thus  by  a  gradual  or  sometimes  a  rapid  pro- 
gress, of  which  we  are  not  permitted  to  trace  every  stage, 
the  heart  of  stone  is  removed,  and  the  heart  of  flesh  is  sub- 
stituted. The  soul  which  once  loved  sin  begins  to  love 
God,  the  selfishness  which  once  ruled  dies  away,  and  the 
generous  instincts  of  love  struggle,  as  with  the  force  of  a 
pent-up  fire,  to  express  themselves  in  acts  of  mercy.  We 
cannot  now  pause  to  trace  the  continued  progress  of  good- 
ness in  that  soul ;  the  help  which  is  vouchsafed  to  it  in  its 
sorrows,  the  support  in  its  temptations,  the  grace  commu- 
nicated to  it  in  the  sacraments ;  yet  as  we  mark  that 
mighty  change,  and  think  of  the  Spirit  dwelling  in  that 
heart,  and  remember  that  this  gift  is  for  us  and  for  our 
children's  children  as  much  as  for  the  churchmen  of  old, 
can  we  fail  to  understand  how  truly  our  Lord  called  the 
Holy  Ghost  a  Comforter,  when  He  promised,  "  I  will  pray 
the  Father  and  He  shall  give  you  another  Comforter  that 
He  may  abide  with  you  forever?" 

4.  But  the  catalogue  of  blessings  imparted  by  the  Com- 
forter, and  implied  in  the  promise  of  His  gift,  is  not  yet 
complete.  We  asserted  that,  besides  the  gifts  of  miracle, 
and  inspiration,  and  holiness,  there  was  a  fourth  conferred 
in  Apostolic  times,  the  gift  of  religious  usefulness,  by  which 
was  meant  that  the  Spirit  of  God  miraculously  and  mys- 
teriously accompanied   the  words  of  the  Apostles  to   the 

19* 


222  SERMON  viir. 

hearts  of  men.  It  is  this  gift  which  is  called  in  St.  Paul's 
Epistles,  in  his  catalogue  of  the  gifts  of  the  Holj  Spirit, 
the  gift  of  ^'prophesying;"  which  did  not  (as  it  would 
seem)  imply  solely  the  power  to  predict  events,  but  was 
a  special  power,  analogous  to  the  gift  of  natural  eloquence, 
of  expounding  religious  truth  with  probably  a  preternatural 
power  of  operating  by  means  of  it  on  the  hearers.  Here 
again  w^e  encounter  a  gift  which  mainly  Avas  confined  to 
the  Apostolic-  age ;  yet,  surely,  not  wholly  so.  For  it  is 
not,  surely,  wrong  to  anticipate  Christ's  presence  to  ac- 
company His  word  and  His  sacraments  to  the  end  of  time ; 
nor  is  it  mere  hypothesis  to  suppose  that,  whenever  in  the 
history  of  the  Church  there  has  been  a  great  religious 
awakening,  there  has  been  a  manifestation  of  the  operation 
of  the  Spirit  of  God  on  men's  hearts ;  that  wherever  an 
apostolic  man  has  arisen,  burning  with  apostolic  love,  and 
moved  with  apostolic  zeal,  and  praying  with  apostolic 
piety,  and  exercising  a  ministry  m.arked  by  apostolic  suc- 
cess, the  Church  has  seen  repeated  in  such  earnestness  the 
Holy  Spirit's  gift  of  prophesying,  the  evidence  of  the  con- 
tinued operation  of  the  Comforter.  Proofs  of  this  assertion 
cannot  be  offered  in  the  limits  of  this  discourse,  yet  an 
allusion  may  be  made  to  one  or  two  examples  of  the  great 
outpourings  of  religious  influences  which  history  has  pre- 
sented, as  evidences  that  the  moral  power  of  Christ's  Spirit 
was  not  confined  to  the  Apostolic  age ;  and  the  examples 
shall  not  be  selected  from  the  catalogue  of  those  move- 
ments to  which  the  world  is  accustomed  to  appeal  as  the 
visible  evidence  of  the  operation  of  God's  Spirit  in  dissi- 
pating error  and  improving  civilization ;  but  shall  be  drawn 
from  among  the  mystics  of  the  earth,  from  men  whose 
primary  object  was  not  the  advance  of  civilization,  and  in 
bunie  of  whom  the   heavenly  truth  may  not  have  been  un- 


ON   THE    HOLY   GHOST.  223 

mixed  with  human  error ;  for  in  them  the  effects  of  good- 
ness which  are  traceable,  will  for  that  very  reason  be  more 
naturally  ascribed  to  superhuman  energy. 

The  first  instance  shall  be  purposely  selected  from  one 
of  the  apparently  fanatical  movements  of  the  middle  ages, 
and  from  the  history  of  a  Church  from  which  the  esta- 
blished Church  of  England  has  justly  separated  itself,  and 
against  the  doctrines  of  which  it  specially  protests  ;  a 
Church  in  which,  nevertheless,  God  in  His  mercy  has  been 
pleased  to  stir  up  souls  for  Himself  in  spite  of  the  manifold 
errors  which  have  impeded  their  holy  work,  and  dimmed 
their  perfect  brightness.  For  it  is  one  of  the  special 
glories  of  this  hallowed  festival,*  that  in  commemorating 
the  gifts  of  the  universal  Spirit,  we  can  outstep  the  narrow 
limits  of  creed  or  party,  and  thankfully  trace  the  Spirit's 
work  in  all  who,  in  every  place  or  in  every  creed,  have 
feared  God  and  wrought  righteousness. 

About  the  year  A.D.  1200, f  in  a  retired  town  of  Central 
Italy,  called  Assisi,  there  lived  a  gay  young  man  who  was 
brought  to  the  gates  of  the  grave  by  illness.  He  felt  death 
at  hand,  and  was  unprepared  for  it.  The  Spirit  of  God 
touched  his  heart ;  he  began  to  prepare  himself  for  it;  and 
when  health  unexpectedly  returned  to  him,  he  threw  aside 
his  gaiety,  and  retired  to  the  mountains  to  lead  the  life  of 
a  hermit.  There  in  the  solitudes  of  the  grand  chain  of 
mountains  which  stretches  through  Central  Italy  he  com- 
muned with  God,  as  the  prophets  of  old  ;  and  returning  in 
the  strength  of  his  pious  convictions,  he  spent  his  life  in 

"  Whit-Sunday. 

t  The  writer,  since  preaching  the  above  Sermon,  has  had  some 
doubts  whether  the  religious  influence  of  Francis  of  Assisi  has  not  been 
exaggerated.  The  best  estimate  of  his  character  is  to  be  found  in  one 
of  Sir  J.  Stephen's  Essays  on  "  Religious  Biography." 


224  SERMON    VIIT. 

arousing  men  to  a  religious  life.  The  plain  which  sur- 
rounded his  humble  dwelling  was  frequently  occupied  by 
thousands  of  weeping  penitents.  His  followers  formed 
themselves  into  one  of  the  monastic  orders,  which  has 
always  made  itself  remarkable  above  its  rivals  for  its  devo- 
tion to  the  wants  of  the  sick  and  the  poor ;  and  after  lead- 
ing a  saintly  life,  the  founder  died,  and  has  been  ever 
since  held  in  reverence  throughout  Christendom  under  the 
name  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi.  I  will  yield  to  no  one  in 
undying  attachment  to  the  Protestant  faith,  yet  1  envy  not 
the  heart  of  that  traveller  who  can  visit  the  sanctuary 
which  covers  the  saint's  grave  Avithout  acknowledging  the 
work  of  God's  Spirit  in  his  life  of  piety.  That  sanctuary 
is  a  temple  of  art.*  Its  walls  are  adorned  by  frescos,  from 
the  hand  of  the  great  masters  who  revived  Italian  painting. 
Yet  far  more  glorious  than  the  physical  glories  of  that 
wondrous  landscape  of  the  southern  clime  which  surrounds 
that  temple,  more  glorious  than  the  works  of  human  genius 
traced  on  its  walls,  is  the  remarkable  work  of  the  righteous 
man  whose  body  lies  there  enshrined  ;  and  I  should  think 
badly  of  the  piety  of  the  pilgrim  who  could  bend  over  the 
saint's  grave  without  a  tear,  and  who  could  turn  away  with- 
out a  prayer  that  God  would  be  pleased  to  grant  him,  free 
from  error,  a  small  measure  of  that  heavenly  love  which  burnt 
so  brightly  in  the  spirit,  and  marked  the  life  of  Francis  of 
Assisi. 

We  may  cite  another  instance  of  the  merciful  influence 
of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  religious  revivals  which  were  almost 
similarly  erratic,  though  not  corrupted  w^ith  a  like  admix- 
ture of  superstition,  in  times  nearer  to  our  own,  and  in  our 


"   An  account  of  these  frescos  may  be  seen  in  Sir  C.  Eastlalcc's  edi- 
tion ofKugler's  "  ilandbook  of  Painting^'  vol.  i,  b.  iii,  ch.  1. 


ON   THE   HOLY   GHOST.  225 

own  land.  The  religious  state  of  England  was  never,  since 
the  Ilcformation,  brought  to  so  low  an  ebb  as  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  last  century.  The  civil  wars  of  the  pre- 
cedinir  ao-e,  and  the  licentious  influence  of  the  court  and  of 
the  literature  of  the  time  of  Charles  II,*  had  led  to  the 
deterioration  of  the  national  character  and  the  almost  total 
extinction  of  religious  life.  What  were  the  means  and  who 
were  the  instruments  through  which  the  flame  of  earnest- 
ness was  rekindled  ?  We  should  belie  the  facts  of  history 
if  we  were  to  deny  their  due  meed  of  praise  in  this  revival 
to  those  individuals  who  founded,  in  the  last  century,  the 
irregular  religious  systems  then  common  iwider  difl"erent 
names. t  A  few  clergymen  of  the  University  of  Oxford,J 
assisted  by  many  laymen,  went  about  our  land  preaching 
with  the  earnestness  of  the  friars  of  the  middle  ages,  ex- 
citing attention  by  the  very  eccentricity  of  their  movements, 
and  arousing  the  religious  feeling  of  masses  of  the  popu- 
lation ;  and  though  most  will  regret  that  the  earnestness 
was  lost  to  our  Church,  yet  all  must  acknowledge  its  bene- 
ficial influence  in  removing  the  cold  lethargic  state  of  feel- 

*  The  allusion  here  is  specially  to  the  dramatic  literature  of  that  age, 
an  estimate  of  which  is  given  in  Hallam's  "  Hist,  of  Lit.,"  iii,  ch.  6, 
and  in  Macaulay's  essay  on  "  The  Dramatists  of  the  Restoration."  The 
drama  may  be  regarded  as  both  a  cause  in  the  formation  of  a  nation's 
character,  and  the  index  of  its  moral  tastes. 

t  The  name  of  Methodism  is  the  best  known  of  these  systems  ;  but 
there  were  several  other  (though  less  important)  centres  of  religious 
influence  at  the  same  period.  Several  such  appear  in  the  ''  Memoirs 
of  Selina,  Countess  of  Huntingdon,"  and  in  ''  The  Life  of  the  Rev.  G. 
Whitfield." 

X  The  Wesleys  and  their  early  friends.  See  Southey's  or  Watson's 
"Life  of  Wesley;"  or  "Rev.  J.  Wesley's  Journals,"  vol.  i ;  or  a  work  on 
the  history  of  Methodism,  entitled  "  The  Centenary." 


226  SERMON   VIII. 

ing  which  previously  existed,  and  in  carrying  the  light  of 
truth  into  many  a  benighted  region  of  our  land,  neglected 
in  real  heathenism. 

There  were  agencies  too  within  the  Church  itself,  which 
Providence  set  in  operation,  for  stirring  up  the  hearts  of 
men.  One  individual  pre-eminently,  in  the  University  of 
Cambridge,*  through  many  years  used  his  position  to  instil 
into  the  minds  of  the  students  the  necessity  of  an  earnest 
practical  personal  piety.  You  may  not  accept  theology 
exactly  as  it  was  there  presented.  You  may  think  that 
system  to  have  been  a  very  narrow  one,  and  very  unscien- 
tific. You  ittay  lay  more  stress  upon  the  Sacraments, 
and  less  upon  election  ;  more  stress  upon  prayer  and 
less  upon  faith  ;  yet  venture  not  to  deny  the  vitalizing 
influence  of  the  Spirit  of  God  through  that  teaching,  in 
awakening  the  Church  to  the  present  energy  which  stirs 
the  hearts  of  men  of  all  parties.  AVe  may  vary  in  opinion 
from  those  individuals  that  we  have  named,  yet  I  cannot 
but  express  ray  belief  that  if,  in  centuries  to  come,  some 
future  Neanderf  should  attempt  to  gather  up  the  memo- 
rials of  piety  and  of  earnest  efforts  which  marked  the 
eighteenth  century,  as  that  distinguished  historian,  who 
lately  was  removed  to  the  Church  triumphant,  collected 
those  which  existed  in  the  earlier  ages  of  the  Church,  he 
will  find  many  of  his  brightest  examples,  many  of  his  en- 
during confessors,  in  those  who  have  received  the  faith  and 
admired  the  labors  of  Wesley,  of  Whitfield,  and  of  Simeon. 

We  have  sketched  the  four  principal  blessings  whicli  the 
great  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit  conferred  on  Christ's  Church, 
— miracle,  inspiration,  holiness,  and  usefulness, — and  have 

'■^  Rev.  C.  Simeon. 

t  Neandcr,  as  is  well  known,  dcvotod  great  attention  in  his  history  of 
the  Church  to  the  study  of  the  internal  spiritual  life  of  Christendom. 


ON   THE    HOLY    GHOST.  227 

noticed  ■Nvliich  "svcrc  temporary  and  which  are  perpetual. 
The  great  gift  of  holiness  is  for  us  and  for  our  children  for- 
ever, and  to  as  many  as  the  Lord  our  God  shall  call.  I 
wish,  in  conclusion,  to  impress  upon  you  the  necessity  of 
examining  yourselves  to  ascertain  whether  you  have  the 
Spirit's  gift  of  holiness  ;  and  if  not,  to  urge  upon  you  the 
necessity  of  seeking  it.  If  you  have  no  consciousness  of 
your  own  sinfulness,  of  your  exceeding  great  needs ;  if  you 
never  know  what  it  is  to  drop  the  tear  of  penitence,  you 
have  yet  to  take  the  very  first  steps  in  conscious  religious 
living.  And  to  those  of  you  who  have  in  some  measure 
set  out  in  a  real  effort  towards  a  religious  life,  let  this  sub- 
ject be  a  warning  to  see  how  far,  how  very  far,  you  fall 
behind  that  standard  of  holiness,  and  happiness,  and  use- 
fulness to  which  you  might  attain.  It  rests  with  yourselves 
to  attain  that  bliss.  The  Apostles  were  ordered  to  con- 
tinue in  prayer  to  obtain  the  Comforter  ;  and  the  law  is  now 
as  then.  They  that  ask  receive.  In  religion,  as  in  com- 
mon life  (we  say  it  without  irreverence),  God  helps  them 
that  help  themselves.  Make  your  earnest  and  constant 
supplications  to  God  for  the  blessings  of  pardon,  of  holi- 
ness, of  consolation,  and  they  will  be  given.  The  Com- 
forter has  been  imparted,  and  God  has  been  pleased  to 
place  His  influences  within  human  reach  by  making  them 
to  be  obtainable  by  prayer. 


SERMON   IX. 

PROVIDENCE  IN  POLITICAL  REVOLUTIONS.* 

(PREACHED  BEFORE  THE  UXIVERSITY,  JANUARY  30,  XS55  ) 


PROVERBS  IG  :  4. 

**  The  Lord  hath  made  all  things  for  himself:  yea,  even  the  wicked  for  the 
day  of  eviir 

The  Hebrew  monarch  here  expresses  his  conviction  that 
the  whole  course  of  nature  and  of  history  is  superintended 
by  the  providence  of  God,  so  that  even  the  plans  of  wicked 
men  are  made  mysteriously  to  co-operate  in  carrying  out 
the  divine  purposes.  The  thought  is  indeed  expressed  in 
the  form  common  to  many  passages  of  Scripture  in  which 
God's  providence  is  so  spoken  of,  as  to  seem  to  exclude 
human  freedom.  Thus  the  Lord  is  said  to  have  "  hardened 
Pharaoh's  heart,"  to  have  "put  a  lying  spirit  in  the  mouth 
of  Ahab's  prophets;"  wicked  men  are  stated  to  be  "  fore- 
ordained to  condemnation,"  and  the  righteous  to  be  "pre- 

*  The  abolition  of  King  Charles's  day,  and  of  the  other  political 
services,  seems  to  render  an  apology  necessary  for  the  publication  of  a 
Sermon  on  a  sul)jcct  now  so  obsolete.     As  the  publication  of  it  was, 


ON    PROVIDENCE   IN   REVOLUTIONS.  229 

destinatecl  to  eternal  life  ;"*  all  which  texts  must  be 
understood  only  to  refer  to  that  general  scheme  of  divine 
government  which  sees  the  end  from  the  beginning,  and  in 
no  sense  to  exclude  the  idea  of  man's  free  agency  and 
responsibility. 

The  reason  of  such  a  mode  of  speaking  may  perhaps  be 
found  in  the  tendency  which  history  shows  to  have  always 
pervaded  the  Oriental  mind,  of  looking  at  the  acts  of  men 
from  the  divine  side  to  the  exclusion  of  the  human, — a 
tendency  which,  in  its  ultimate  development,  has  degene- 
rated into  the  fatalism  of  Eastern  creeds;  and  herein  we 
may  observe  one  of  those  instances  where  God,  in  His 
great  gift  of  a  revelation,  has  made  use  of  the  peculiarities 
of  human  thought  as  the  medium  of  its  transmission.  The 
treasure  is  divine,  but  it  is  communicated  in  earthen  vessels. 
The  theology  of  the  Bible  is  inspired ;  the  ideas  which  it 
offers  of  God's  government  and  of  man's  character  are 
realities ;  but  the  form  under  which  those  ideas  have  been 
conveyed  has  partaken  of  the  peculiarities  of  personal  or 
of  national  thought  which  belonged  to  those  who  uttered 
them,  and  indeed  has  been  accommodated  with  a  marvellous 
wisdom  to  the  circumstances  and  wants  of  the  ages  and 
peoples  to  whom  they  have  been  addressed;  and  it  is  for 
this  reason  that,  in  passages  such  as  our  text,  in  which  the 
wicked  are  said  to  be  "made  for  the  day  of  evil,"  we 
understand  the  inspired  thought  (when  translated  into  the 
modes  of  thinking  of  European  nations)  merely  to  be  that 
the  universe  of  events  is  so  arranged  and  overlooked  by  the 
Father  mind  that  even  the  day  of  evil,  which  wicked  men, 

however,  earnestly  requested  at  the  time  when  it  was  preached,  and  as 
the  subject  is  treated  in  such  a  manner  as  to  elicit  political  and  histo- 
rical principles  which  can  never  become  extinct,  the  writer  ventures  to 
allow  the  Sermon  to  appear  in  print. 

*  Exod.  14  :  4-8 ;  2  Chron.  18  :  21  ;  Jude  1:4;  Rom.  8  :  29,  30. 


230 


SERMON   IX. 


acting  in  the  strength  of  human  liberty,  bring  about,  is 
made  to  adjust  itself  harmoniously — a  wheel,  as  it  were, 
within  a  wheel — into  the  vast  scheme  of  nature ;  and  so, 
ultimately,  while  the  wicked  bear  the  burden  of  their  own 
personal  responsibility,  to  w^ork  out  the  great  purposes 
which  an  all-good  God  may  design  in  the  government  of 
His  works. 

If  the  thought  of  Solomon  be  taken  in  this  sense,  it  will 
be  easily  seen  how  many  circumstances  had  occurred,  both 
in  the  history  of  his  family  and  his  nation,  to  bring  home 
to  him  the  conviction  of  this  truth.     A  mind  like  his  must, 
doubtless,  have  often  marvelled  as   it    meditated    on    the 
remarkable  deliverance  of  his  nation   from  the   land    of 
Egypt;    for  the  light   of  prophecy  had  shown  that  this 
whole  passage  was  no  accident  in  the  national  history,  but 
that  the  evil  had  contributed  to  bring  out  the  result  equally 
with  the  good  ;   or  if  he  thought  of  that  period  of  four 
hundred  years,  which  intervened  between   Moses  and  the 
Prophets,  during  which  there  was  no  open  vision,  and  in 
which  the  Almighty  might  almost  seem  to  have  left  the 
nation  to  the  superintendence  of  merely  ordinary  laws  (as 
occurred  afterwards  in  the  corresponding  period  between 
the  Prophets  and  the  Gospel),  he  may  perhaps  have  mar- 
velled how  wondrously,  in  spite  of  deep  internal  disorganiza- 
tion and  occasional  anarchy,  the  successive  schemes  of  the 
border  nations  to  annihilate  the  chosen  people  had  not  only 
been  defeated  but  made  to  minister  to  its  good ;  and  if  he 
passed  on  in  thought  to  the  circumstances  which  had  at- 
tended  alike  the   early   and  the   later   life  of  his   father 
David,  how  many  a  day  of  evil,  both  of  public  and  family 
history,  would  seem  to  his  pious  mind  to  have  been  ordered 
of  God !    how  frequently  would  events  be  seen  to  have 
tended  to  the  very  opposite  eifects  to  that  for  which  their 


ON   PROVIDENCE   IN   REVOLUTIONS.  231 

wicked  authors  had  designed  them,  just  as  the  waters  of  a 
river  steadily  press  onward  to  the  ocean,  even  when,  by  the 
windings  of  the  course,  they  appear  to  be  flowing  directly 
away  from  it!  how  often  in  such  meditations  as  these, 
might  the  heart  of  Solomon,  overflowing  with  gratitude  for 
the  past  and  exulting  with  confidence  for  the  future,  express 
its  experience  in  the  w^ords,  "  The  Lord  hath  made  all 
things  for  himself;  yea,  even  the  wicked  for  the  day  of 
evil." 

But  if  the  experience  which  Solomon  had  of  the  world's 
history,  restricted  as  it  was  to  that  of  a  single  nation  and 
of  a  short  period  of  time,  yet  brought  home  forcibly  the 
conviction  of  this  law  of  Providence,  how  much  greater 
opportunity  has  been  afforded  to  us  of  noticing  the  evidence 
of  its  truth.  In  his  day  the  drama  of  the  world's  history 
had  hardly  begun  to  be  acted  ;  it  was  not  merely,  as  it 
were,  in  its  first  act  but  in  its  first  scene,  and  it  would 
have  defied  the  skill  of  the  acutest  to  have  anticipated  its 
development ;  and  though  the  catastrophe  is  not  yet  come, 
yet  we  are  able  to  study  the  plan  of  Providence  in  several 
distinct  epochs  and  in  many  distinctly  marked  manifesta- 
tions under  each.  We  can  pass  in  thought  beyond  the 
Jewish  nation,  and  view  the  successive  centres  of  power 
and  of  civilization  which  sprung  up  in  the  ancient  world. 
We  can  study  the  display  of  human  passion  in  its  fiercer 
and  darker  forms,  in  that  period  of  general  convulsion,  of 
the  universal  extinction,  as  it  at  the  time  appeared,  of  all 
order,  and  maturity,  and  goodness,  which  marked  the 
overthrow  of  the  great  empire  which  had  absorbed  the 
other  powers.  We  can  see  how  the  darkness  of  that  night 
of  barbarism  passed  away  before  the  voice  of  Him  who 
commanded.  Let  there  be  light ;  and  how  the  brightness 
of  law,  and  learning,  and  liberty  dawned  again  upon  the 


232  SERMON    IX. 

earth.  And  still  further,  in  each  of  those  empires  which 
have  arisen  in  the  modern  world,  many  instances,  alil^e  in 
their  external  and  internal  history,  afford  proofs  of  the 
Almighty  power,  of  the  Providence,  of  Him  who  sitteth 
above  the  waterfloods  and  calms  the  storm  of  human  passion. 
And  as  the  pious  mind  watches  in  all  these  successive 
periods  the  agency  and  operations  of  evil,  and  the  mar- 
vellous manner  in  which,  on  the  whole,  the  good  has 
resulted,  he  must  feel  that  the  text  is  brought  home  to  him 
with  a  fulness  of  proof  which  Solomon  could  not  possess. 
The  voice  of  history  is  seen  to  declare,  "  The  Lord  hath 
made  all  things  for  himself;  yea,  even  the  wicked  for  the 
day  of  evil." 

The  service  of  this  day  naturally  directs  our  thoughts  to 
one  of  those  periods  in  the  history  of  our  own  nation ;  and 
as  we  look  back  upon  it,  one  of  the  first  thoughts  which 
must  suggest  itself  to  a  believer  in  Providence  is  admira- 
tion at  the  wonderful  manner  in  which  that  fierce  contest, 
which  brought  into  view  and  enlisted  all  the  best  and  all 
the  worst  feelings  of  men,  finally  operated  so  mysteriously 
for  good,  in  spite  of  the  misery  of  so  many  years  of  inter- 
nal convulsion.  The  eifecfc  of  the  evil  was  temporary  ;  the 
good  was  permanent. 

It  is  fortunate  for  us  that  we  are  able  to  view  that  event 
across  the  chasm  of  two  centuries.  The  interval  has  made 
so  marked  an  alteration  in  our  social  state,  that  most  of 
the  questions  which  relate  to  it  may  be  studied  without 
the  party  feelings  which  they  once  called  forth. 

We  arc  now  able  to  look  at  that  period  as  a  whole,  in  its 
consequents  as  well  as  its  antecedents,  and  so  to  apprehend 
its  real  nature.  For,  as  in  estimating  the  effect  of  a  work 
of  human  architecture,  we  arc  compelled  to  retire  to  some 
distance  from  it,  if  we  wish  to  understand  the  unity  of  the 


ON    PROVIDENCE    IN    REVOLUTIONS.  233 

artist's  conception  ;  so,  if  we  would  view  rightly  the  great 
deeds  of  God's  natural  providence,  we  must  first  reduce 
them  to  their  true  historical  perspective ;  and  hence  it  is 
that  when  we  observe  the  religious  service  of  tliis  day  we 
do  so  with  a  different  feeling  from  that  which  marked  its 
early  institution.  For  its  founders  viewed  the  scene  as 
actors  or  spectators ;  we  know  the  events  of  it  only  by 
narration.  Their  execration  was  directed  against  the  per- 
sons who  were  distinguished  in  that  revolution,  ours  against 
their  crimes.  Their  minds  could  see  nothing  in  the  whole 
period  but  the  death  of  the  martyr  king ;  we,  while  we  can 
lament  that  cruel  act  as  much  as  they  did,  can  view  it  as 
one  event  in  a  whole  period ;  they  could  only  see  that  it 
was  wrong  to  put  to  death  one  of  royal  blood ;  we,  it  is  to 
be  hoped,  have  learned  the  broader  lesson,  that  it  is  wrong 
to  employ  capital  punishment  for  any  merely  ^;o?z7z(J«^ 
oifence  whatever.  They  instituted  the  service  to  deprecate 
a  trespass  on  the  divine  right  of  monarchical  institutions ; 
we  retain  it  to  assert  our  conviction  of  the  divine  right  of 
human  government. 

We  shall,  accordingly,  employ  our  time  more  profitably 
on  the  present  occasion  if  we  rise  from  the  consideration 
of  this  single  event  to  the  contemplation  of  a  general  fact 
of  God's  providential  government ;  for  thus,  instead  of  re- 
viving wornout  controversies  or  exciting  party-spirit,  we 
shall  bear  away  that  deep  and  reverential  feeling  which 
arises  whenever  we  are  made  to  perceive,  by  the  study  of 
God's  general  laws,  something  of  the  majesty,  and  wisdom, 
and  goodness  of  Him,  who  fiUeth  all  in  all. 

The  great  fact  to  which  attention  is  now  asked  is  this, — 
that  God  has  been  pleased  so  to  order  the  structure  and 
arrangements  of  society,  that  even  the  suffering  of  periods 
of  internal  national  convulsion  is  compensated  by  conse- 

20* 


234  SERMON    IX. 

quent  good,  and  that  the  selfishness  of  parties  of  which 
those  revolutions  are  the  effect  and  manifestation,  is  over- 
ruled for  the  advancement  and  general  happiness  of  society. 
A  law  like  this  is  no  defence  for  revolution, — it  is  no 
apology  for  insurrection.  It  is  merely  an  argument  from 
Final  Causes  in  behalf  of  the  moral  attributes  of  the  Al- 
mighty. It  is  one  example  of  the  truth  which  the  piety 
of  Solomon  expressed  in  the  words,  "  The  Lord  hath  made 
all  things  for  himself;  yea,  even  the  wicked  for  the  day  of 
evil." 

It  is  necessary,  however,  before  we  develop  the  proof 
of  the  assertion,  to  point  out  briefly  its  bearing  upon  the 
general  argument. 

No  fact  has  been  made  more  clear,  from  the  discoveries 
of  science,  than  the  abundance  of  beneficent  arrangements 
which  exist  in  nature.  Each  science  contributes  examples 
to  the  collective  argument.  Yet,  wonderful  as  are  the 
proofs  of  Divine  goodness  drawn  from  obvious  instances  of 
beneficence,  they  are  not  so  striking  as  those  which  arise 
from  observing  the  system  oF  compensations  ordained  in 
nature  for  the  misery  and  evil  which  exist. 

It  gives  me  a  noble  idea  of  the  Divine  Being  when,  as  I 
watch  the  stars  which  move  in  the  evening  sky,  I  conceive 
of  them  as  sustained  in  their  orderly  course  according  to  a 
few  simple  intelligible  laws ;  but  how  vastly  is  my  idea 
deepened,  both  concerning  the  majesty  and  beneficence  of 
the  Almighty,  when,  in  reflecting  on  the  disturbances 
which  they  are  generating  in  one  another's  movements, 
and  trembling  to  think  of  the  universal  catastrophe  which 
in  the  depths  of  future  times  those  disturbances  may  bring 
about,  I  see  that  the  subtle  results  of  calculation  demon- 
strate that  a  system  of  compensations  of  amazing  grandeur 
is  at  work,  and  that  the  laws  whicli  the  Divine  Being  has 


ON    PROVIDENCE   IN    REVOLUTIONS.  235 

impressed  upon  matter  guarantee  the  stability  of  the  sys- 
tems which  He  has  created  !*  Or  when  I  restrict  my  view 
to  phenomena  of  this  earth,  which  seem  not  to  speak  of  a 
God  of  love,  what  an  idea  do  I  obtain  of  the  Divine  good- 
ness, when  it  is  made  apparent  that  even  the  volcano's 
lire,  which  seems  only  fraught  with  desolation,  is  made  the 
instrument  of  replenishing  the  whole  vegetable  kingdom, 
and  thus,  indirectly,  the  family  of  man,  with  a  supply  of 
those  material  principles  w^hich  are  necessary  for  its  con- 
tinued support  If  The  great  fact  of  the  permission  of 
physical  evil  is  brought  before  the  mind  in  a  new  aspect. 
That  single  apparent  exception  to  the  Divine  goodness  is 
seen  to  be  marked  by  evidences  of  it ;  and  the  surprise 
which  the  discovery  excites,  renders  the  argument  irre- 
sistible. 

And  though  analogy  would  hardly  warrant  an  expecta- 
tion that  the  intractable  phenomena  of  moral  and  social 
evil  would  yield  to  explanation  as  readily  as  those  already 
cited  of  physical  mischief,  yet  here  also  experience  brings 
to  light  the  existence  of  a  system  of  laws  which  are  as  com- 
prehensible and  unchangeable  as  those  which  regulate  the 
universe  of  brute  matter.  Now,  of  social  phenomena  there 
are  tAvo  classes,  which  at  first  view  seem  fraught  with  woes 
without  commensurate  blessings,  and  which  a  sceptic  might 
regard  as  an  objection  to  the  idea  of  the  government  of  a 
merciful  Creator, — viz.,  external  ivar  and  internal  convul- 
sion. The  argument  might  be  applied  to  the  former  of 
these  topics ;  and  war  could  be  shown,  however  immense  an 
evil  in  itself,  to  have  contributed  to  the  progress  of  civiliza- 

*  Lagrange's  "  Problems/'  referred  to  before  in  the  first  three  Ser- 
mons. 

t  See  the  concluding  chapter  on  "  The  Final  Causes  of  ^^oleanoes," 
in  Dr.  Daubeny's  v,'ork  on  that  subject. 


236  SERMON   IX. 

tion,  and  the  final  result  of  most  of  the  conquests  which  the 
world  has  witnessed,  be  proved  to  have  been  beneficial ; 
but  it  is  not  so  obvious  that  the  same  remark  applies  to  the 
latter  subject.  It  is,  accordingly^,  my  object  to  extend  the 
argument  on  the  Divine  benevolence  to  embrace  this  class 
of  phenomena.  It  is  intended  to  assert  that,  irrespective 
of  the  particular  deeds  of  the  parties  whose  interests  may 
operate  in  public  disorders,  the  general  effect  of  such  con- 
vulsions in  the  order  of  Providence  is  not  the  misery  which 
would  be  antecedently  expected  from  them. 

There  are  two  principal  respects  in  which  Divine  Provi- 
dence overrules  the  misery  of  revolution,  viz.,  in  making  it 
contribute  to  the  material  and  the  moral  welfare  of  man  ; 
— the  material,  in  the  advancement  of  liberty  and  happi- 
ness ;  the  7noral,  in  the  formation  of  national  character  and 
opinion. 

The  few  moments  of  our  present  service  will  not  admit  of 
that  induction  of  particular  instances  of  revolutions,  which 
would  be  the  natural  mode  of  establishing  this  assertion. 
It  must  suffice  to  indicate  the  mode  in  which  these  advan- 
tages are  brought  about,  and  to  advert  to  some  features  in 
the  history  of  the  revolution  to  which  our  thoughts  are  this 
day  turned,  which  will  afford  illustration  and  verification  of 
them. 

I.  History  seems  to  show  two  facts  in  relation  to  society 
as  fundamental  circumstances  of  its  existence  ;  first,  that 
society  is  in  a  state  of  progress ;  and  secondly,  that  it  is  a 
progress  towards  a  condition  of  equality.* 

Power  and  government  are  given  to  be  used  for  the  good 

*Thi.s  su1)ject  may  he  studied  in  Aristotle's  ''Politics,''  b.  v ;  in 
Vico's  "Scienza  Nuova;"  in  Dr.  Arnold's  "  Thucydidcs,"  vol.  i,  appen- 
dix 1 ;  in  Thirlwall's  "  Greece,"  vol.  i,  cli.  7  ;  in  Lucas's  "  English  Prize 
Essay,  at  Oxford,  1845." 


ON    PROVIDENCE   IN    REVOLUTIONS.  237 

of  others,  and  not  for  the  benefit  of  the  possessor  :  they  are 
a  trust,  and  not  a  right.  If  this  thought  could  be  felt  and 
acted  upon,  revolution  would  be  unknown ;  when  it  is  for- 
gotten and  violated,  a  convulsion  is  the  terrible  means  of 
reasserting  it.  Wherever  we  possess  the  history  of  a  revo- 
lution we  shall  find  that  it  has  always  arisen  from  an  oppo- 
sition to  the  unalterable  fact,  that  society  is  in  a  state  of 
growth  to  maturity,  and  that,  accordingly,  institutions 
which  are  a  blessing  to  one  age  may,  after  a  lapse  of  time, 
cease  to  work  for  good  ;  that  power  which  is  wisely  with- 
held from  men  unfit  to  use  it,  becomes  the  right  of  people 
who  are,  by  education  or  circumstances,  fitted  for  its  pos- 
session. Nor  is  it  an  objection  to  this  doctrine  that  the 
point  at  which  power  ought  to  be  conceded  cannot  be  pre- 
cisely laid  down;  for  this  is  only  stating  a  difficulty  which 
is  common  to  all  sciences,  which,  like  that  of  government, 
consider  only  probable  evidence,  and  which,  after  exhibit- 
ing a  principle,  commit  the  execution  of  its  details  to  the 
agent  as  part  of  his  moral  trial. 

If,  then,  there  be  a  truth  in  this  principle,  it  is  clear  that 
revolution  is  made  in  the  hands  of  Providence  a  good,  if  it 
is  the  means  of  developing  that  progressive  growth  in  so- 
ciety which  is  its  ineffaceable  property.  The  assertion  does 
not  involve  the  propriety  of  revolution.  The  end  may  be 
good,  the  means  which  men  employ  for  its  attainment  may 
be  indefensible ;  it  only  postulates  that  through  the  means, 
whether  right  or  wrong,  the  great  end  of  public  liberty  and 
consequent  happiness  is  brought  about,  and  the  beneficence 
of  the  Almighty  thus  shown  in  constructing  society  in  such 
a  manner  that  even  the  severity  of  revolution  ministers  to 
the  permanent  good  of  man  ;  that  the  Lord  hath  made  all 
things  for  himself,  even  the  wicked  for  the  day  of  evil. 


238  SERMON   IX. 

If  we  apply  this  principle  to  the  case  of  our  own  revo- 
lution we  shall  remark  an  illustration  of  its  truth. 

In  order  that  we  may  see  how  this  particular  case  is  an 
instance  of  the  law  of  progress  just  stated,  we  should 
notice  that  it  assumed  the  form  not  so  much  of  a  contest 
for  new  rights,  as  of  a  protest  against  the  infringement  of 
those  which  already  existed.  This  is  a  feature  common  to 
all  the  struggles  of  that  age  in  European  states,  and  forms 
a  sufficiently  marked  contrast  with  those  which  we  see 
exemplified  in  the  ancient  world.  The  cause  is  that,  when 
about  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  the  several 
European  nations,  for  the  first  time,  began  to  act  in  their 
international  relations  as  united  kingdoms,  each  of  them 
separately  possessed  in  itself  the  reality  of  present  and  the 
prospect  of  future  liberty.  It  was  the  heritage  handed 
down  from  the  past,  the  mixed  result  of  the  free  institutions 
which  were  introduced  by  the  barbarians  who  overran  the 
Roman  empire,  and  the  municipal  and  social  institutions 
which  Rome  had  communicated  to  the  world,  and  which 
survived  the  nation  which  had  established  them.*  But  at 
the  time  of  which  we  speak,  this  liberty  was  to  be  put  to  a 
severer  trial  than  it  had  ever  known.  It  had  outlived  the 
incursions  of  barbarism  ;  it  was  now  to  suffer  danger  from 
the  very  advance  of  civilization.  For  the  circumstance 
which  then  enabled  the  different  nations  of  Europe  to  take 
their  position  in  the  European  system  was,  that  they  had 
each  lately,  for  the  first  time,  become  consolidated  into 
united  kingdoms.  The  fragments  of  civilization  had  existed 
in  the  middle  ages ;  but  the  attempts  of  great  minds,  such 
as   Charlemagne   and    Ilildebrand,  to  reunite  those  frag- 

"'"■  See  Guizot's  "Hist,  of  Civilization,"  vol.  i,  ch.  G,  10;  and  Sir  J. 
Stephcu\s  "Lcct.  on  Hist,  of  France,"  vol.  i,  ch.  3,  4. 


ON    PROVIDENCE    IN   REVOLUTIONS.  239 

ments,  had  been  baffled.*  Nature,  however,  in  due  time 
brought  about  that  which  thej  were  unable  to  effect,  first 
bj  joining  the  scattered  elements  of  each  state  into  one 
nation,  and  then  by  cementing  the  various  nations  of 
Europe  into  one  confederation  by  the  common  principles 
of  a  states-system  and  law  of  nations. 

It  was  in  this  centralization  of  power  that  the  peril  to 
public  liberty  in  that  age  arose.  The  legislative  and 
judicial  functions  were  so  arranged  as  to  be  a  sufficient 
guarantee  of  liberty;  but  they  were  now,  for  the  first  time, 
in  danger  of  succumbing  to  the  executive.  Hence  the 
form  which  the  struggles  for  public  liberty  took  was  that 
of  the  defence  of  the  ancient  constitutions.  That  this 
danger  extended  to  England  also  at  that  period  none  will 
be  prepared  to  deny.  There  may  be  differences  of  opinion 
as  to  the  amount  of  opposition  which  the  measures  of  the 
administration  justly  provoked.  Some,  for  example,t  may 
think  that  liberty  was  sufficiently  secured  by  the  first  ses- 
sion of  the  Long  Parliament  in  the  spring  of  1641,  without 
the  institution  of  an  ex  post-facto  law  to  punish  the  sup- 
posed public  offenders;  othersj  may  judge  that  further 
guarantees  were  required  in  dealing  with  a  government 
which  had  flagrantly  violated  its  own  promises  given  to  the 
Petition  of  Right  twelve  years  previously;  but  whichever 
view  be  taken,  there  is  not  an  Englishman  living  who  will 
deny  the  peril  in  which  public  liberty  was  placed  in  the 
early  part  of  the  reign  of  Charles  I  by  the  plans  of  his 
counsellors.     If  proof  were  asked,  it  may  be  found  in  the 


*  Guizot's  "  Hist,  of  Civilization,"  vol.  i,  cli.  3,  6,  10. 
t  As  Hallam,  in  his  "  Constitutional  History." 

t  As  Macaulay,  in  his  review  of  Hallam's  "  Constit.  Hist./'  Essays, 
vol.  i. 


240  SERMON    IX. 

private  letters  of  that  acute  statesman*  who  directed  for 
many  years  the  king's  counsels.  We  there  find  that,  en- 
amoured with  the  beauty  of  the  principle  of  centralization 
as  carried  out  in  the  preceding  century  in  Spain,  and  in  his 
own  day  by  the  cardinal  statesman  who  directed  the  coun- 
sels of  France,  he  had  planned  schemes  for  increasing  the 
power  of  the  executive  until  the  government  of  England 
should  be  assimilated  to  those  of  absolute  kina'doms. 
Whether  the  success  of  such  a  scheme  would  have  been  for 
the  good  of  this  country  will  be  seen  if  you  further  take 
into  account  the  probability  which  existed  at  that  time  (a 
probability  which  subsequent  events  have  made  a  fact)  that 
England  would  rise  in  the  scale  of  European  kingdoms, 
and  would  consequently  be  compelled  to  establish  a  stand- 
ing army.t  For  this  circumstance  was  now  about  to  give, 
for' the  first  time,  a  power  to  the  Prince  to  carry  out  his 
will  in  spite  of  the  will  of  the  nation.  And  the  history  of 
France  may  show  us  what  would  have  been  the  effect  in 
this  country,  if  the  providence  of  God  had  not  by  the  great 
revolution  prevented  it.  In  that  kingdom  the  ablest,  not 
merely  of  her  many  able  kings,  but  one  of  the  most  talented 
princes  who  ever  adorned  a  throne,  succeeded  in  crushing 
the  liberties  of  his  country,  not  from  the  low  and  selfish 
motive  of  his  own  gratification,  but  under  the  guidance 
of  the  enlightened  Colbert,|  from  a  mistaken  view^  of  pro- 
viding for  the  general  happiness  of  his  people ;  and  the 
consequence  was  seen  soon  after  his  death.  lie  had  caused 
all  power  to  depend  upon  the  character  of  the  king.     His 

*  The  references  to  "Wcntworth's  Correspondence"  are  given  in 
Macaulay's  "Hist,  of  England,"  vol.  i,  ch.  12. 

t  See  Maeaulay's  "  Hist,  of  England,"  vol.  i,  ch.  1. 

X  For  Colbert's  administration,  see  Sir  J.  Stephen's  "  Lect.  on  Hist, 
of  France,"  vol.  ii,  ch.  22. 


ON    PROVIDENCE    IN    REVOLUTIONS.  241 

successor,  a  weak  and  effeminate  prince,  was  unable  to 
carry  out  his  great  ideas.  The  unreality  of  the  system 
was  at  once  revealed  to  view,  and  the  dreadful  acts  of  the 
first  French  revolution  were  the  protest  of  the  people 
against  the  abuses  of  that  system  of  government.  If  we 
could  guarantee  the  perpetuation  of  a  race  of  kings  pos- 
sessed of  perfect  intellectual  and  moral  qualities,  we  could 
intrust  to  them  absolute  power:  but  such  a  property  is 
confined  to  God's  government ;  it  exists  not  in  man's.  And, 
therefore,  as  we  cannot  insure  the  perfect  wisdom,  or  the 
entire  goodness  of  a  race  of  governors,  we  establish  public 
liberty  on  the  basis  of  a  Constitution,  i.  e.,  we  surround  all 
those  who  are  invested  with  power  with  such  artificial  regu- 
lations and  conditions  as  may  allow  them  full  scope  for 
acting  for  the  good  of  the  nation,  but  may  bring  them  to  a 
stand  at  once  if  either  their  judgment  or  their  heart  betray 
them. 

We  believe  then  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of 
Charles  I,  England  was  in  the  great  peril  of  passing  from 
a  constitutional  to  an  absolute  form  of  government,  and 
we  assert  that  the  effect  of  the  revolution  which  followed, 
was  to  guarantee  and  to  assure  the  continuance  of  the 
Constitutional  power.  We  are  fully  alive  to  the  faults 
and  sins  of  those  who  conducted  the  revolution  ;  we  do  not 
even  attempt  to  defend  that  revolution  itself;  it  is  un- 
necessary to  the  present  argument  to  do  so.  We  speak 
not  of  man  but  of  God ;  not  of  human  acts  but  of  the 
Divine  general  plan ;  and  we  assert  with  confidence  that 
any  one  who  looks  with  pride  on  the  British  Constitution, 
and  believes  tha.t  as  a  whole  it  contains  a  surer  guarantee 
for  public  liberty  than  any  form  of  government  which  the 
world  has  ever  known,  must  feel  that  whatever  may  have 
been  the  temporary  evil  of  the   revolution,  the  establish- 

21 


242  SERMON    IX. 

ment  of  that  Constitution  on  a  sure  basis  was  a  perma- 
nent unspeakable  good ;  we  affirm  that  the  providence  of 
God,  in  permitting  great  periods  of  public  misery,  is  seen 
nevertheless  to  compensate  for  them  by  lasting  good.  The 
evil  falls  on  a  single  generation  ;  the  blessings  become  the 
everlasting  inheritance  of  posterity.  We  assert  that  we 
have  justified  the  utterance  of  Solomon,  "  The  Lord  hath 
made  all  things  for  himself;  yea,  even  the  wicked  for  the 
day  of  evil." 

Yet  it  may  be  thought  that  our  attention  is  called  to-day, 
not  so  much  to  the  revolution  as  to  its  crimes,  and  more 
especially  to  that  act  of  malice,  the  spiteful  vengeance 
taken  on  a  helpless  prince  by  men  too  mean  to  be  gene- 
rous, too  selfish  to  be  just.  This  aspect  of  the  revolution 
contributes  a  most  important  point  in  the  argument  to  the 
Divine  beneficence.  For  any  one  who  studies  the  history 
of  that  time  must  marvel  how  it  was,  that  the  country  ever 
could  free  itself  from  the  men  into  whose  hands  the  govern- 
ment had  fallen.  And  the  same  remark  is  true  of  all  such 
periods  in  other  nations,  as  well  as  in  that  of  our  own  coun- 
try. Suppose  an  individual  in  the  ancient  time  attempting 
in  the  midst  of  some  period  of  anarchy,  such  as  the  civil 
wars  of  the  Roman  Triumvirate,  to  forecast  the  future  of 
Roman  history  ;  or  during  the  great  French  revolution, 
wondering,  as  the  faubourgs  of  the  capital  poured  out 
band  after  band  of  revolutionists,  each  more  fierce  than  its 
predecessors,  how  society  was  ever  to  deliver  itself  from 
the  tyrants  which  itself  had  raised,  and  you  will  realize  the 
beneficence  of  that  law  of  Providence  which  enables  society 
to  rectify  itself.  At  such  times,  the  first  leaders  of  the 
revolution,  men  of  patriotic  temper  and  high  principle, 
succumb  to  impostors  who  come  with  unreal  schemes  of 
political  change,  and  with  dark  and  selfish  plans  for  their 


ON  PROVIDENCE  IN  REVOLUTIONS.        243 

own  aggrandizement.  Society  is  rcdissolved  into  its  pri- 
mitive elements.  Law  and  moral  power  give  place  to 
plij^sical.  And  yet  the  day  of  deliverance  comes.  If  it 
were  not  so,  a  convulsion  would  be  an  unmixed  woe,  a  vial 
of  wrath  to  the  age  wdiich  suffers  it,  and  a  curse  to  poste- 
rity. But  there  is  in  man  a  tendency  to  preserve  as  well 
as  to  destroy,  an  instinct  against  anarchy  as  well  as  against 
tyranny.  And  by  this  principle,  a  beneficent  Providence 
enables  society  to  free  itself  from  its  own  excesses,  and  to 
secure  the  real  blessings  which  it  originally  coveted,  with- 
out permanent  submission  to  the  evils  which  attended  their 
attainment. 

The  civil  war  in  our  own  history  supplies  abundant  evi- 
dence of  the  truth  of  these  remarks.  Omitting  the  many 
wild  schemes  of  political  change  which  were  then  ferment- 
ing in  society,  we  may  allude  to  the  danger  which  menaced 
the  established  Church  of  this  country.  The  Constitution 
of  England  did  not  undergo  a  greater  peril  from  the  abso- 
lutism of  AYentworth,  than  the  faith,  and  art,  and  institutions 
of  its  Church  underwent  from  the  fanaticism  of  tlie  Puritans. 
While  w^e  must  always  admire  the  learning  and  personal 
excellence  of  many  of  the  Puritan  clergy,  and  their  steady 
and  praiseworthy  (though  often  excessive)  attachment  to 
the  Protestant  faith,  yet  we  cannot  but  feel  that  the  suc- 
cess of  their  principles  would  have  involved  the  destruction 
of  some  articles  of  faith,  jind  some  Apostolical  institutions 
which  our  Church  holds  most  dear;  and  would  especially, 
by  the  addition  of  harsh  tests  and  dogmatic  creeds,  have 
extinguished  that  breadth  and  comprehensiveness  of  cha- 
racter which  has  always  formed  the  glory  of  the  English 
Church,  and  would  have  suppressed  the  freedom  of  thought 
which  must  ever  be  the  only  permanent  safeguard  of  theo- 
logical truth.      And  so  the  character  of  Charles  I  must 


214  SEKMON    IX. 

always  carry  an  interest  to  the  hearts  of  churchmen,  for 
one  of  the  chief  features  of  his  mind  was  his  marked  at- 
tachment to  the  Encrlish  Church.  There  is  even  something 
chivalrous  in  the  manner  in  which  he  and  the  royal  party 
defended  the  Church,  as  dearly  as  the  throne.  Those 
heroic  men  died,  and  their  last  moments  were  saddened  by 
the  thought  that  their  cause  was  lost ;  but  they  died  not  in 
vain.  They  fell  defending  the  breach  through  which  the 
enemy  was  entering  the  fortress ;  but  men,  as  they  saw 
them  fall,  themselves  regained  their  courage,  and  rallied 
round  the  standard  which  they  had  died  defending.  And 
so  the  cause  of  order  again  revived,  and  the  moral  again 
triumphed  over  the  physical.  Or  if  you  prefer  to  explain 
in  some  other  manner  the  play  of  human  passion  through 
which  society  was  enabled  to  reap  the  solid  benefits  of  the 
revolution  without  becoming  the  permanent  victim  of  its 
excesses,  you  must  at  least  confess  that  it  is  the  beneficence 
of  the  Almighty  which  has  given  society  the  power  to  pre- 
serve itself.  Human  forces  seem  to  hush  the  chaos  of 
anarchy,  but  it  is  the  Lord  who  says,  Peace ;  be  still.  The 
storm  passes  away,  the  calm  again  returns.  It  is  the  Lord 
who  "  hath  made  all  things  for  himself;  yea,  even  the 
wicked  for  the  day  of  evil." 

II.  We  stated  that  it  was  not  merely  in  the  material, 
but  in  the  moral  benefit  of  national  convulsions  that  the 
beneficence  of  Providence  can  be  shown. 

The  moral  benefits  are  to  be  found  either  in  the  disci- 
pline which  is  administered  by  them,  or  in  the  lessons 
taught.  As  we  distinguish  between  the  training  and  the 
instruction  of  an  individual  mind,  so  also  the  same  diflerence 
exists  between  the  gradual  and  almost  unobserved  forma- 
tion of  national  habits,  and  the  opinions  which  constitute 
the  popular  and  conscious  states  of  belief. 


ON    TROVIDENCE   IN    REVOLUTIONS.  245 

The  discipline  resulting  from  times  of  convulsion  is 
necessarily  that  of  suifering.  The  tendency  of  suffering  to 
produce  good,  as  applied  either  to  an  individual  or  a  nation, 
is  an  Ptllowed  fact.  Yet  it  may  occur  to  the  mind  that 
the  suffering  of  revolution,  being  connected  with  party 
strife,  cannot  administer  the  same  blessings  as  in  instances 
where  it  arises  from  external  sources.  It  is  obvious  how 
an  event,  such  as  a  public  war,  may  unite  a  people  in  a 
common  purpose  and  a  common  sorrow,  and  tie  them  by  a 
prmciple  of  patriotism  in  the  bond  of  one  brotherhood. 
But  it  is  not  so  clear  how  good  results  can  follow  when  the 
suffering  arises  from  strife  and  division.  There  is  indeed 
truth  in  this  remark.  Yet  it  is  the  marvellous  property  of 
pain  that  it  possesses  so  comprehensive  a  power,  and  so 
appeals  to  every  deep  susceptibility  of  our  nature,  that  it 
lays  bare  some  feelings  which  operate  for  moral  discipline, 
even  in  a  case  like  this,  which  at  first  sight  is  so  unpromis- 
ing. For  suffering  brings  home  to  man  a  deep  practical 
sense  of  his  own  insufficiency,  and  his  dependence  on  a 
superior  power.  There  are  two  principal  feelings  in  the 
mind,  the  consciousness  of  dependence  and  the  conscious- 
ness of  power ;  the  latter  prompts  to  action,  the  former  to 
piety.  Suffering  acts  upon  the  latter ;  it  awakens  in  us 
the  consciousness  of  needing  help  which  we  cannot  supply. 
Like  Manasseh  in  his  dungeon,  we  are  then  ready  to  call 
on  the  Lord  God  of  our  Fathers.  And  suffering  also  draws 
out  some  special  virtues.  Though  in  mean  characters  it 
increases  only  selfishness  and  cruelty,  yet  in  others  it  calls 
out  courage  and  generous  devotion.  It  singularly  happens, 
too,  that  a  selfish  principle  is  added  in  cases  of  revolution 
to  assist  it ;  for  the  spirit  of  party  excites  a  feeling  of 
sympathy  with  those  who  are  ranged  on   the  same  side. 

21^- 


246  SERMON    IX. 

And,  in  fact,  history  might  be  brought  in  to  confirm  the 
benefits  which  theory  establishes. 

But  suffering  serves  not  only  to  discipline,  but  to  in- 
struct ;  for  linked  as  it  is  with  the  notion  of  sin  as  its  cause, 
it  excites  a  deep  practical  hatred  of  the  crimes  which  have 
produced  the  suffering.  And,  connected  with  this,  it  has 
a  tendency  to  awaken  attention  and  induce  inquiry  con- 
cerning both  the  cause  and  cure  of  national  convulsions. 
IIow  many  lessons  might  thus  be  gathered  from  our  own 
revolution  ;  how  many  precious  maxims  of  political  wisdom 
or  moral  guidance  might  be  its  warning  to  posterity  !  Nay, 
even  if  it  should  be  found  that  mea  through  carelessness 
have  neglected  to  gather  those  lessons,  yet  if  it  be  shown 
that  instruction  is  the  natural  though  not  the  necessary 
result  of  suffering,  our  argument  equally  proves  that  even 
in  the  pain  attending  on  public  convulsions,  the  beneficence 
of  the  Almighty  is  manifested. 

We  have  now  completed  our  notice  of  some  points  in  re- 
lation to  public  convulsions,  in  which  the  goodness  of  God 
is  seen  in  bringing  permanent  good  out  of  temporary  evil. 
And  you  must  be  again  reminded  that  the  argument  is 
irrespective  of  the  question  of  the  propriety  of  any  par- 
ticular revolution,  or  even  of  revolution  in  the  abstract. 
We  assert  that  the  Almighty  has  been  pleased  so  to  govern 
society  that  he  rescues  it  from  the  effect  (it  may  be)  of  its 
own  follies;  that  he  evolves  good  where  we  have  only  a 
right  to  expect  evil ;  that  "  He  hath  made  all  things  for 
himself;  yea,  even  the  wicked  for  the  day  of  evil." 

In  conclusion,  we  may  bear  away  two  valuable  lessons  : 

1.  The  consideration  of  the  benevolence  of  the  Almighty 
ought  to  give  us  confidence  in  the  contemplation  of  the 
future  prospects  of  the  nation  or  the  world. 

At  all  times,  earnest  men  feel  so  bitterly  the  disappoint- 


ON    PROVIDENCE    IN    REVOLUTIONS.  247 

ment  of  their  hopes  that  they  are  ready  to  despair  of  the 
prospects  of  mankind.  Their  experience  teaches  them  that 
the  strongholds  of  evil  bid  defiance  to  their  attacks, — that 
their  efforts  for  social  or  political  amelioration  meet  only 
with  defeat.* 

And  if  we  look  at  the  material  and  moral  aspect  of  the 
world,  there  are  many  circumstances  to  suggest  thoughts 
of  deep  sadness.  Eighteen  hundred  3^ears  have  passed 
since  the  glad  tidings  Avere  proclaimed  that  a  Saviour  had 
come;  and  still  three-fourths  of  the  population  of  the 
world  have  never  yet  heard  of  His  name.  Or  if  we  restrict 
our  view  to  our  own  land,  which  seems  in  a  special  manner 
to  be  the  home  of  civilization  and  piety,  what  a  terrible 
state  of  society  is  revealed  to  us  by  that  single  statistic,t 
that  one-half  of  our  people  never  enter  a  place  of  worship  ! 
What  prospect  is  there  of  reclaiming,  even  for  civilization 
itself,  the  masses  crowded  by  thousands  in  the  hearts  of 
our  large  towns,  who  have  thrown  away  virtue,  humanity, 
and  religion  ?  It  is  not  surprising  that  earnest  men  should 
look  with  gloom  on  the  future. 

But  the  subject  which  we  have  been  considering  may 
afford  some  ground  of  consolation.  Though  the  prospect 
be  really  dark, — though  the  shadows  of  night  seem  closinnr 
in  upon  us,  yet  at  evening  time  it  shall  be  light.  There  is 
One  above,  whose  eye  is  not;  unmindful  of  this  world's 
history,  whose  blessed  Son  "  tasted  death  for  every  man," 
— who  "  willeth  that  all  men  should  be  saved."  And  He 
so  manages  this  world's  course  that  He  will  evolve,  by  His 
gGjieral  laws,  good  out  of  evil.     He  rules  not  in  the  world 


*  A  paragraph  of  the  original  Sermon  is  here  omitted  which  referred 
to  circumstances  of  war  and  recent  disease,  now  happily  past, 
t  A  fact  of  the  census  of  1851. 


248  SERMON    IX. 

merely  of  blind  unconscious  matter,  but  in  the  actions  of 
thinking  responsible  man.  The  past  of  the  world  declares 
that  *'  He  hath  made  all  things  for  Himself;  yea,  even  the 
wicked  for  the  day  of  evil."  And  if  we  could  take  our 
stand  on  some  eminence,  and  trace  forward,  in  the  depths 
of  the  future,  the  issue  of  this  world's  stream  of  time,  we 
should  see  it  swallowed  up  in  the  ocean  of  the  Divine  attri- 
butes. We  should  take  up  the  song  of  Seraphim,  and 
proclaim,  that  not  the  heaven  merely,  but  the  earth  also, 
is  full  of  God's  glory. 

2.  There  is  a  second  lesson,  which  is  a  very  practical 
one,  taught  us  by  this  subject,  viz.,  to  ask  ourselves  whether 
we  are  severally,  by  our  conduct,  co-operating  in  carrying 
out  the  plan  of  Providence,  or  helping  to  thwart  it.  The 
end  of  the  Divine  government  is  goodness.  If  we  are  aim- 
ing at  the  same  result,  we  are  filling  our  proper  sphere  in 
the  world  ;  if  our  hearts  are  full  of  selfishness  toward  man 
and  disobedience  toward  God,  we  arc  doing  our  part  to 
thwart  the  great  end  of  the  Divine  administration.  How 
blessed  a  privilege  it  is  to  think  that  we  have  the  oppor- 
tunity, each  one  of  us,  of  doing  our  share — aye,  though  it 
be  the  very  smallest — to  co-operate  with  God  !  How  much 
might  we  do  for  the  world  by  our  efforts  if  we  were  to  use 
our  opportunities  of  battling  with  evil !  Let  us  under- 
stand that  the  way  to  regenerate  others  is  first  to  renovate 
ourselves.  If  we  would  be  the  means  of  doing  something 
for  God  and  for  goodness,  we  must  fix  well  in  our  minds 
that  we  are  not  to  reflect  the  religious  tone  of  the  world, 
but  to  introduce  into  the  world  the  elements  of  goodness 
which  it  does  not  possess.  It  is  God  the  Holy  Ghost  who 
alone  can  give  them  to  us.  It  is  He  alone  who  can  impart 
to  us  that  religious  earnestness  which  shall  make  us  active 
for  His  honor  and  for  man's  welfare.     The  chief  mode  of 


ON    PROVIDENCE   IN    REVOLUTIONS.  249 

obtaining  this  Divine  help  is  by  cultivating  a  habit  of  com- 
munion with  God  by  private  prayer.  This  is  the  secret  of 
any  good  man's  life,  whether  it  be  one  of  action  or  of  suf- 
fering. It  was  so  with  the  royal  prisoner.  As  his  troubles 
thickened  round  him,  and  he  could  find  no  help  from 
friends  and  no  mercy  from  foes,  he  was  wont  to  betake 
himself  to  God  for  consolation ;  and  hence  arose  that 
placid,  confessor-like  spirit  with  which  he  bore  the  sorrows 
of  his  closing  days,  and  that  calm  and  heroic  fortitude  with 
which  he  met  the  terrors  of  the  hour  of  death.  And  we 
may  be  certain  that,  whatever  be  our  earthly  lot,  however 
humble  or  however  great,  whether  spent  in  happiness  or 
marked  with  sorrow,  if  we  would  secure  our  own  usefulness 
in  life,  and  our  own  safety  in  death  and  judgment,  we  must 
follow  such  an  example  of  piety,  and  learn  to  find  a  friend 
in  God.  For  then  we  shall  be  as  polished  shafts  in  the 
Almighty's  quiver  in  the  great  battle  of  good  against  evil ; 
wc  shall  indeed  find  that  evil  will  give  way  before  us ;  and, 
in  the  blessed  consciousness  of  a  life  not  spent  altogether 
in  vain,  we  shall  realize  in  their  fulness  the  words  of  Solo- 
mon, ''The  Lord  hath  made  all  things  for  Himself;  yea, 
even  the  vficked  for  the  day  of  evil." 


NOTE, 

On  the  Scene  of  the  Execution  of  Charles  I. 

This  seems  not  to  be  an  unfit  place  to  notice  some  facts  in  reference 
to  the  scene  of  the  king's  execution,  which  have  been  drawn  from  old 
engravings  and  maps,  still  preserved  in  the  Chapel  Royal  at  Whitehall. 
The  king  was  executed  in  front  of  the  middle  window  of  the  present 
Chapel  Royal,  on  the  side  facing  the  present  street,  and  not,  as  is  often 


250  SERMON   IX. 

supposed,  on  tlie  other  side.  At  that  time,  instead  of  the  streets  and 
gardens  which  now  lie  around,  an  old  brick  palace  existed,  not  unlike 
parts  of  the  present  one  of  St.  James's.  Its  outlying  quadrangles  and 
buildings  stretched  as  far  north  as  the  present  Scotland  Yard,  while 
one  large  quadrangle,  containing  the  royal  garden,  lay  immediately  to 
the  back  of  the  Chapel  Royal ;  on  the  side  of  which  quadrangle,  next 
the  river,  stood  the  royal  apartments.  The  street  which  now  runs  in 
front  of  the  chapel  was  about  half  its  present  width ;  a  guard-house 
stood  in  front  of  the  present  Horse  Guards,  while  immediately  in  front 
of  the  chapel  was  a  tilting-ground  ;  and  a  few  yards  to  the  south  of  it, 
i.e.,  in  the  direction  of  Westminster  Abbey,  a  brick  archway  spanned 
the  street,  similar  to  that  which  now  forms  the  principal  entrance  to 
the  Palace  of  St.  James.  The  banqueting-hall  which  forms  the  present 
Chapel  Royal  is  the  only  portion  ever  completed  of  a  grand  design  of 
James  I  for  rebuilding  the  palace.  The  older  portion  of  the  palace 
w^as  destroyed  by  fire  in  the  time  of  William  III,  and  the  banqueting- 
hall  was  converted  into  a  chapel  by  George  I.  On  the  day  of  the  exe- 
cution, Charles  I  was  brought  (about  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning)  from 
the  Palace  of  St.  James  across  St.  James's  Park,  and  was  conducted 
over  the  archway,  which  has  been  above  described.  He  then  spent 
nearly  three  hours  in  worship,  probably  in  a  small  chapel  which  then 
lay  adjacent  to  the  archway  to  the  southeast  of  the  present  Chapel 
Royal ;  and,  after  his  devotions,  was  conducted  through  the  interior  of 
the  present  chapel  to  the  scaffold.  It  is  doubtful  whether  he  passed 
through  one  of  its  windows  on  to  the  scaffold,  or  was  led  completely 
through  it  to  a  portion  (now  destroyed)  of  the  palace  which  then  stood 
a  little  to  the  north  of  the  present  chapel,  and  thence  led  to  the  scaffold  ; 
but  that  the  position  of  the  scaffold  was  in  front  of  the  present  building 
there  can  be  no  doubt. 


■V,-'., 

■m:^"^^ 


m^m^ 


